Project Description
How to connect OIL & GAS Refinery to the Future?
Here the Practice SC4T developed for an OIL & GAS Refinery Customer:
Customer’s requests: Connect via wireless IEEE802.11ax and point-to multipoint bridge, a large portion of Refinery territory laid in the desert in Egypt with more than 5km2 with Access Control of several workers and IOT controls in the Refinery.
Today’s oil and gas industry needs to enhance operations improving industrial control data and expert collaboration. The Wireless Refinery solution provides a converged, standards-based architecture for applications that monitor and gather data right down to the sensor level, for maintenance purpose and for Access Control System solution.
Those Data help Managers to improve efficiency, create and adjust processes, and comprehensively manage the refinery site.
Oil and Gas Refinery Challenges
The cost of producing oil and gas is constantly increasing. Material and Production are more and more expensive and to keep good margin it is necessary to improve efficiency making better use of assets. In a stricter and stricter regulatory climate, refineries must also safeguard employee health and safety, especially in remote areas keeping an eye productivity.
Current networking capabilities need to be upgraded, to accurately set schedules, track equipment, or grow the system architecture accordingly to the business needs.
Connectivity across the Network
Many refineries are locked into costly, proprietary IT environments, maintaining multiple networks for business and control systems.
By contrast, SC4T can interconnect a wide variety of applications for business, security, and processes–from wireless phones and remote video collaboration to industrial control systems and enterprise applications.
The Wireless Refinery solution is based on an open-standards IP infrastructure, which integrates and interoperates with all major industrial protocols, including ISA.100.11a and Wireless bridge point-to-point for Access Control System Solution and for sensors.
It is powered by routers and switches ruggedized for harsh refinery environments, ATEX certified wireless mesh Access Points (Aps) where needed, and some technology to reduce radio interference and help improve performance.
Visibility into Refinery Control Systems
The Wireless Refinery solutions allow real-time visibility and access to sensor-level information, permit to control physical access to Refinery plant extending the data coverage via Wireless LAN providing condition-based monitoring to assure high performance from equipment and Internet of Things, sensor-based too. This lowers Opex by:
- Reducing unplanned downtime and
- Shortening planned maintenance
- Support comprehensively integrated on-site and remote operations, providing “eyes and ears”
Location-Based Asset Management and People Safety
SC4T offers innovative Location-Based and Context-Aware Services over the IEEE 802.11 wireless network. By tagging equipment, vehicles, and containers with active RFID tags, workers can monitor their location to reduce loss and theft and to help ensure that assets are available when and where needed.
Assets protected by an automated sensor-based system that monitors and alerts workers regarding their surroundings.
Along with a panic button, it provides alerts on environmental conditions, such as dangerous levels of gas or temperature variances. These functionality and features protect workers and improve safety.
Assuring Cyber and Physical Security
SC4T’s wireless network promotes information and system security with a full suite of industry-leading firewalls, next-generation encryption, interference and rogue access point–detection tools, intrusion detection, network management, client security, and other critical control measures.
It also provides a set of TAG-specific services and supports message-level controls such as authentication and authorization. Using video management and partner camera solutions, SC4C supports physical security systems to help guard the site from intrusion.
Benefits
- Powerful visibility into every aspect of the refinery operation
- Faster decision making based on real-time information
- Flexible implementation of advanced applications, and reduced time to deployment of devices, avoiding expensive cabling
- Better management of resources and assets with the enable of mobility applications over the wireless network
- Improved safety for personnel and property
- Greater regulatory and security compliance
- Lowered costs through greater efficiency and physical security
Egypt Refinery’s solution
The SC4T’s wireless network in Egypt Refinery has been designed for the LAN extension dedicated to ACS for controlling the access
With SC4T Access Control System provided during the construction phase of Refinery, the expansion Project ensures control and monitoring of the whole infrastructure.
The LAN developed using a Mesh system by Ubiquiti and Sice Telecom Point-to-Multi-point wireless bridge guarantee a complete coverage of the area.
The Point-to-Multipoint topology (also called star topology or simply P2MP) is a common network architecture for outdoor wireless networks to connect multiple locations to one single central location. In a point-to-multipoint wireless Ethernet network, all remote locations have a single connection towards the center of the star network where one or more base station is typically located.
The remote locations at the edge of the networks called “client” locations and the central location called the “access point” or “base station”. Point-to-multipoint wireless networks have been studied in the 1990s and in the early 2000s and discussed in many academic publications because they can be affected by certain issues such as the hidden terminal issues or the exposed terminal issues, depending on the point-to-multipoint protocol implemented to coordinate the transmissions over the wireless medium. Most outdoor point-to-multipoint networks implement a centralized medium access control protocol or employ a TDMA-based protocol synchronizing all radio devices with a GPS device in order to avoid hidden terminals and terminal issues.
Outdoor point-to-multipoint wireless solutions are very common for both Oil & Gas as well as Smart Cities with outdoor video-surveillance systems. In a WISP network, subscribers connected at the edge of the network using a client device typically mounted on the roof of their house. One or more central base stations mounted on a high building, or on a mountaintop or on a water tower in line of sight with as many client devices as possible.
In outdoor wireless video-surveillance systems, each camera in the field is connected to a wireless client device and then a base station mounted on top of a tall building and acts as the central device and coordinator of the point-to-multipoint wireless network. In a point-to- multipoint wireless CCTV system, all video streams from the remote cameras collected to the center of the point-to-multipoint wireless system, and then transferred to a control room using a point-to-point wireless or fiber backhaul.
