Application of Advantech Embedded Industrial Computers in Wind Power Generation

With the increasing support from the government for the wind power industry, the wind power industry has developed rapidly. In 2007, 3,155 new wind turbines were installed in mainland China, with an installed capacity of 3.304 million KW. Compared with the 1.337 million KW of new installed capacity in 2006, the growth rate of new installed capacity in 2007 was 147.1%.

In 2007, there were 669 wind turbines in China, with an installed capacity of 590.6KW and 158 wind farms in 21 provinces and cities. Compared with the cumulative installed capacity of 259.9KW in 2006, the cumulative installed capacity growth rate in 2007 was 127.2%, achieving the goal set out in the National "Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for Renewable Energy Law" three years ahead of schedule.

With the rapid growth of China's wind power market and the entry of new wind turbine manufacturers, the competition pattern of China's wind turbine supply market is quietly changing. Wind farm developers are more enthusiastic about investing in wind farms than ever before. China's wind power installed capacity will exceed people's expectations again and set a new record by the end of 2008! It is estimated that by the end of 2008, China's newly installed wind turbine capacity will reach 7.304 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity will reach 13.356 million kilowatts. The growth rate of newly installed capacity is expected to reach 111.71%.

The national goal of 30 million kilowatts of wind power installed capacity by 2020 is expected to be achieved in 2011. By 2020, China's wind power installed capacity is conservatively estimated to reach 80 million kilowatts.

With the large-scale construction of wind farms, wind farm information management systems and wind turbine remote monitoring systems are also widely used. In such a system, it is necessary to monitor and control the operating equipment on site to realize various functions such as data acquisition, equipment control, measurement, parameter adjustment, and various signal alarms. Various acquisition signals and control signals are collected through industrial Ethernet and fieldbus to Advantech's strict computer UNO-2170 , and then the data is transmitted to the wind energy detection server through another Ethernet port. In this process, UNO-2170 acts as a data gateway.

2. Wind power customers ’ demand for embedded industrial computers

Wind power generation systems are usually installed in harsh environments with dust and strong winds. In such an environment, using a PC with a fan as the host platform will cause fan and system failures. The customer requires a reliable computer platform with a long MTBF and a compact platform. After investigation, the customer selected UNO-2170 as the data gateway for the wind power controller.

3. System network architecture diagram

4. Solution Analysis

UNO has two Ethernet ports, which can realize the dual network isolation of field data acquisition Ethernet and upper information management Ethernet. This can ensure the security and real-time performance of the field control layer. The system communicates with the main control PLC through an Ethernet port, which can monitor and control the running equipment on site to realize various functions such as data acquisition, equipment control, measurement, parameter adjustment and various signal alarms. Another Ethernet port is connected to the server of the monitoring center through the wind farm LAN, and various acquisition signals and control signals are transmitted to the server through industrial Ethernet. In addition, UNO has a convenient expansion function PC/104 interface, which can adapt to various special needs on site. In this project application, by adding a fieldbus card with a PC/104 interface, it is convenient to communicate with fieldbus devices.

5. Advantages of Advantech Products

a) The system is stable, shock and shock resistant

Advantech's network communication management machine uses embedded low-power chips and a full-board soft-connection-free design, which doubles the system reliability.

It has wide operating temperature range and good shock and vibration resistance. It is suitable for use in harsh industrial sites such as steel mills.

b) Intelligent communication and large capacity

Advantech communication management machine can automatically detect the network status and automatically adjust the storage strategy of collected data. When the host database network is interrupted, it will automatically store the collected data locally. When the network returns to normal, it will automatically record the temporary data to the host database. The storage data volume can reach up to 250G.

c) Easy to use and rich drivers

Advantech's network communication management machine does not require programming. You only need to select the corresponding driver according to the type of the lower-level device and perform simple parameter configuration to complete data collection, temporary storage and retransmission functions. It is compatible with more than 100 mainstream PLC and DCS systems.

d) Open architecture, built-in server

Advantech Network Communication Manager is an open network communication manager. With built-in webServer, you can easily learn the status and data collected on site through the web. With built-in ModbusTCP Server and OPC Server, you can exchange data with mainstream configuration software.

e) Dual network isolation, data security

Advantech's network communication management machine has two Ethernet ports, which can achieve physical isolation between the field control layer and the data acquisition layer. This fundamentally eliminates illegal access to the control layer and ensures the safe operation of the production system.

6. Product specifications

UNO-2170是一款高性能Celeron M 控制器,支持PC/104扩展、串行通讯端口和其它网络功能。UNO-2170支持Windows XP Embedded OS和Windows CE.NET, 能够提供定制的映像文件，带有优化后的板载设备驱动程序。嵌入式Windows XP Embedded能够以组件方式提供Windows操作系统的功能。您可以方便的将自己的应用无缝整合到Windows XP Embedded中,通过使用带有丰富网络功能的应用随用平台显著加快您的系统开发周期，以满足不同的应用需求。

On-board Celeron M 1GHz or Celeron 600MHz, 256/512MB DDR DRAM

Provides 512KB battery-backed SRAM

Supports ECC DDR DRAM (only for Celeron M 1GHz processor)

Support LM sensor, can obtain CPU and board temperature for monitoring

2 RS-232 and 2 RS-232/422/485 ports with automatic data flow control

2 10/100Base-T RJ-45 ports

2 USB and 1 Type I/II PC card

· 2 optional PC/104 expansions

·Windows CE.5.0 and Windows XP Embedded solutions

Supports Windows 2000/XP and Linux drivers

· Windows XP (SP2) Embedded Ready-to-use Platform with Write Protection (EWF)