Project: Control and Data Acquisition for Novel Therm’s Geothermal Engine
Industrial Automation Solution collaborated with Novel Therm to develop a control and data acquisition system for their unique geothermal heat engine. Novel Therm’s requirements included precise control of the engine and the ability to log substantial amounts of data for analysis and optimization.
To meet these requirements, we designed a solution based on the Mitsubishi Electric iQ-R PLC, coupled with a GT2108 HMI for visualization. Key features of the system include:
PLC Control: The iQ-R PLC provides the necessary processing power and modularity to control the engine’s operation, manage safety interlocks, and coordinate auxiliary systems.
HMI Visualization: The GT2108 HMI provides operators with a clear and intuitive interface for monitoring engine parameters, viewing real-time data, and adjusting setpoints.
Data Logging: The system captures high-resolution data from various sensors, storing it locally on an SD card and/or transmitting it to a remote database for long-term trend analysis and performance optimization. The iQ-R’s high-speed scanning capabilities were crucial for this.
Scalability: The iQ-R platform’s scalability ensures that the control system can be expanded to accommodate future enhancements and additional engine modules.
We selected the iQ-R PLC by Mitsubishi Electric to control and gather data from the Stirling heat engine. The iQ-R series is a rack bases PLC and has a variety of different modules and redundant PLC capabilities. For collecting valuable data points in the micro second scan rate the iQ-R PLC provided the necessary scan time and data base capability to store the data on a SD card or log the sensor data to a data base on a PC that is on the same network. Expansion was also a concern as the development of the project moves to the next phase so we developed the PLC code in a modular fashion.
For visualization, we used the GT2108 HMI from Mitsubishi Electric. This gave us the graphical interface locally at the unit and remote viewing/control from anywhere with an internet connection.