Communication Protocol Converters & Gateways

From Mod­bus­R­TU to IEC 61850 — unlock new poten­tial with state-of-the-art pro­to­col conversion

What is a Protocol Gateway?

Pro­to­col gate­ways, also known as pro­to­col con­vert­ers or trans­la­tors, are small devices that main­ly func­tion as trans­la­tors between var­i­ous pro­to­cols and phys­i­cal lay­ers (i.e. Eth­er­net and ser­i­al lines). They allow to con­trol and com­mu­ni­cate with machin­ery such as intel­li­gent elec­tron­ic devices, sen­sors and com­put­ers  in order to oper­ate indus­tri­al facil­i­ties such as dams, sub­sta­tions, pow­er plants, and water pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties. Since numer­ous devices par­tic­i­pate in one process or func­tion, but often come from dif­fer­ent ven­dors, com­mu­ni­ca­tion lay­ers and pos­si­bly appli­ca­tion areas, the devices are not able to com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er and a pro­to­col con­vert­er is required to con­vert the data into the right for­mat. Even though indus­tri­al automa­tion sys­tems have been tran­si­tion­ing from pro­pri­etary pro­to­cols towards stan­dard com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols, the grow­ing com­plex­i­ty of the super­vised sys­tems has kept gate­ways as cen­tral ele­ment in all kinds of com­mu­ni­ca­tion networks.

Fur­ther­more, the ongo­ing trend of intro­duc­ing IoT in indus­tri­al envi­ron­ments presents fur­ther inter­op­er­abil­i­ty chal­lenges due to the bridge between ser­i­al-based oper­a­tional tech­nol­o­gy (OT) and infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy (IT), com­mon­ly using Eth­er­net, Wifi or GPRS networks.

Advantages of Protocol Gateways by iGrid T&D

  • High-end at low cost - thanks to our pow­er­ful soft­ware core, even our small­est devices, i.e. the iGWlite, will pro­vide all pro­to­col capa­bil­i­ties your device or net­work needs
  • High-stan­dard mul­ti-lay­er secu­ri­ty mea­sures from access con­trol to data encryption
  • All devices and soft­ware solu­tions pro­vide secured mul­ti-lay­er pro­to­col con­ver­sion between all pro­to­cols of the iGrid pro­to­col suite and between mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ca­tion media, such as Eth­er­net, Ser­i­al or GPRS
  • Secure­ly col­lect and aggre­gate data from mul­ti-ven­dor IEDs with a sin­gle gate­way or SCADA sys­tem and con­vert it to any pro­to­col you want.
  • Strong­ly flex­i­ble, mod­u­lar and scal­able solu­tions, adapt­able to any sys­tem requirements/ net­work topology
  • Sim­ple migra­tion to IEC 61850 –  use any iGrid prod­uct as client or serv­er and map any pro­to­col onto IEC 61850 MMS or IEC 61850 GOOSE (publisher/ sub­scriber), thus con­vert­ing any old IED into an IEC 61850 device
  • Diverse expe­ri­ence with IoT net­works and web ser­vices com­bined with a strong IP suite support
  • Col­lect and con­cen­trate mul­ti-ven­dor meter­ing data and load curves through mul­ti­ple pro­to­cols through IEC60870‑5–102, IEC 62056–21, Mod­bus or DLMS and trans­fer it to con­trol centers
  • Inter­nal PLC based on IEC 61131–3 for sig­nal pro­cess­ing, advanced automa­tion func­tions and log­i­cal schemes
  • Inter­nal mem­o­ry and advanced net­work redun­dan­cy based on RSTP, HSR and PRP (IEC 61850) for high­er data reli­a­bil­i­ty and main­te­nance work.
  • High-pre­ci­sion time man­age­ment based on PTP or NTP to pre­vent any data losses

Protocol Conversion and Network Gateways

One of the major chal­lenges with com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works in elec­tric and indus­tri­al facil­i­ties is the inte­gra­tion of new sub­sta­tion tech­nol­o­gy in old­er net­works, where old and new devices have to coex­ist and com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er. Exam­ples of this can be new con­trol cen­ters that have to com­mu­ni­cate with old automa­tion sys­tems or new­ly installed intel­li­gent elec­tron­ic devices (IEDs), which must con­nect to old sys­tems in the net­work or the con­trol center. 

Anoth­er com­mon chal­lenge is com­mu­ni­ca­tion accross mul­ti­ple lay­ers (e.g. from Mod­bus RTU to Mod­bus TCP), spe­cial­ly when it involves sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion media, such as ser­i­al and Eth­er­net.

Solu­tions by iGrid T&D have been designed for exact­ly this kind of chal­lenges. Thanks to our com­mit­ment to stan­dard pro­to­cols, all devices devices and soft­ware sys­tems, com­pris­ing RTUs, gate­ways, I/O exten­sion units and SCADA sys­tem, pro­vide a unique range of com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols and con­nec­tiv­i­ty options.

Our solu­tions can use almost all pro­to­cols to both col­lect and trans­fer data from and between devices and entities.

Amongst oth­ers, the sup­port­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols include:

Master/Slave IEC 60870–5‑101 Master/Slave IEC 60870–5‑104
Master/Slave Mod­bus TCP/UDP and JBUS (mas­ter) Master/Slave Mod­bus­R­TU
Master/Slave DNP3.0 (ser­i­al, UDP, TCP) Mas­ter IEC 60870–5‑103
Mas­ter IEC 60870–5‑102 Mas­ter DLMS
Mas­ter Profibus DP Mas­ter Spabus, Mlink, Procome
Mas­ter IEC 62056–21 SNMP Agent/Manager
IEC 61850 MMS Client/Server                 IEC 61850 GOOSE Publisher/Subscriber
OPC UA

 

Our solu­tions can also com­mu­ni­cate through tech­nolo­gies from oth­er indus­tries like mySQLweb ser­vices and IoT pro­to­cols (e.g. MQTT).

Fur­ther­more, the devices have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with equip­ment from numer­ous dif­fer­ent ven­dors in a broad vari­ety of appli­ca­tions. We have con­nect­ed it all: new and old sys­tems, Eth­er­net and ser­i­al, IEC 61850 and old lega­cy pro­to­cols (like SPA-bus), IoT net­works and old relays, SCADA sys­tems and intranets, gen­er­a­tion and ener­gy market. 

Our Gateways and Protocol Conversion Solutions

Since we believe in advanced automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy, all devices and soft­ware sys­tems by iGrid T&D can not only con­vert between sev­er­al pro­to­cols but also pro­vide an exten­sive range of func­tion­al­i­ties and char­ac­ter­is­tics to over­come present and future com­mu­ni­ca­tion chal­lenges in the most effi­cient ways.

With our state-of-the-art prod­ucts, you no longer need to wor­ry about inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and net­work inef­fi­cien­cies. 

Our devices are already con­fig­urable and ver­sa­tile by design, but we also pro­vide fur­ther prod­uct con­fig­u­ra­tions and tai­lored ser­vices upon request.   

Serial to TCP, Multi-Layer Protocol Converter & Network Gateway

iGW, iGWlite
  • Mul­ti­ple Ser­i­al & Eth­er­net ports, option­al Eth­er­net Switch and GPRS modem 
  • Con­ver­sion between all pro­to­cols, e.g:
    Mod­bus­R­TU to IEC 61850
    Profibus to Mod­bus TCP
    DNP3 to Web Services
  • Con­ver­sion between sev­er­al lay­ers, from ana­log sig­nals to web applications
  • Tiny device com­bin­ing advanced Data Pro­cess­ing and Automa­tion functions

Smart Meter Gateway, Data Concentrator & Load Curve Collector

iGWlite, iGW 
  • Pro­to­col con­ver­sion from IEC60870‑5–102, IEC 62056–21, Mod­bus or DLMS into any desired pro­to­col and com­mu­ni­ca­tion layer
  • Data col­lec­tion and con­cen­tra­tion from more than 24 meters at once
  • Load Curve col­lec­tion and transfer
  • Data pro­cess­ing & automa­tion with inter­nal PLC based on IEC 61131–3
  • Com­pact all-in-one devices

 

Powerful Protocol Conversion Software

iGW-VM, iControl SCADA — Main network gateway/ communications hub
  • Can act as cen­tral gate­way, meter man­age­ment & automa­tion system
  • For all lev­els, from network/ sub­sta­tion Gate­way and SCADA HMI to Con­trol Center
  • Pro­vides pow­er­ful mul­ti-lay­er pro­to­col con­ver­sion capa­bil­i­ties to your entire network
iGW-VM — Communication front-end
  • High­ly scal­able and pow­er­ful gate­way soft­ware for any serv­er run­ning on win­dows or linux.
  • com­mu­ni­ca­tion front-end for siwtchgears, trans­form­ers and oth­er equipment
  • iGrid pro­to­col suite for pow­er­ful mul­ti-lay­er pro­to­col con­ver­sion capa­bil­i­ties to your gear, con­trol sys­tem, device or PLC

 

State-of-the-Art R&D and Advanced Engineering & Product Development

International R&D
  • Inhouse R&D on the fore­front of com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­col tech­nol­o­gy, enriched by numer­ous inter­na­tion­al and aca­d­e­m­ic project
Engineering & Development Services
  • Advanced and cus­tomized appli­ca­tion engi­neer­ing and prod­uct devel­op­ment for spe­cif­ic client needs. 

Substation RTU, Bay Controller, Distributed I/O..

iRTU, iRTUcompact
  • Mul­ti­ple Ser­i­al & Eth­er­net ports, option­al Eth­er­net Switch and GPRS modem 
  • Two con­fig­urable I/O cards with up to 48 dig­i­tal inputs & out­puts and ana­log inputs
  • iGrid pro­to­col suite for pow­er­ful mul­ti-lay­er pro­to­col con­ver­sion capa­bil­i­ties to your gear, con­trol sys­tem, device or PLC
    iRTUe
    • Remote I/O units for advanced SAS networks
    • IEC 61850 GOOSE communication

     

    Oth­er com­mon fea­tures of iGrid T&Ds soft­ware core, iGComms, run­ning on all iGrid products:

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    Time Management

    All of our devices are capa­ble of high pre­ci­sion time-syn­chro­niza­tion (<1ms) via PTP or NTP and car­ry inter­nal Real-Time Clocks with a an accu­ra­cy of 1ppm. This allows to keep on record­ing events with a micro-sec­ond time stamp­ing accu­ra­cy, even when con­nec­tion to the time source (mas­ter­clock) is lost, per­mit­ting to trace fail­ures back meticulously.

    g

    iConf Tool

    iConf has been specif­i­cal­ly devel­oped for elec­tri­cal appli­ca­tions, sav­ing you lots of time and mon­ey through­out the con­trol sys­tem set-up and main­te­nance tasks, whilst also min­i­miz­ing your project risks. You can use the soft­ware tool to con­fig­ure all igrid devices and soft­ware sys­tems as well as design IEC 61850 projects, to up and down­load your con­fig­u­ra­tions, and cre­ate your own tem­plates. 

    PLC Automation

    All our devices can exe­cute logical/mathematical func­tions and automa­tion sequences with super high speeds thanks to their PLC capabilities.

    The inte­grat­ed PLC is high­ly scal­able and has been applied in all kinds of fields to solve a broad vari­ety of challenges.

    iConf­PLC
    User-friend­ly and graph­i­cal pro­gram­ming mod­ule (edi­tor) for automa­tion sequences and PLCs based on IEC 61131–3.

    Compliance and Interoperability Across the Globe

    Thanks to our expe­ri­ences with elec­tri­cal net­works and sub­sta­tions in a vari­ety of indus­tries all around the plan­et, our prod­ucts have been pre­pared for an imm­mense range of high-demand­ing require­ments and stan­dards, guar­an­tee­ing a peace­ful approval process for any project in any coun­try. Our cer­ti­fi­ca­tions range from EMC com­pat­i­bil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­col stan­dards like IEC 61850 to cyber secu­ri­ty means and have been assert­ed by third par­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion bod­ies like DNV GL/ KEMA.

    Why to Opt for a Protocol Gateway by iGrid T&D? 

    Our advanced Pro­to­col Gate­ways can han­dle a unique range of pro­to­cols and net­work archi­tec­tures, allow­ing them to match net­work require­ments and col­lect, process and trans­fer data from mul­ti-ven­dor IEDs and meters using sev­er­al pro­to­cols at once. These capa­bil­i­ties can be pro­vid­ed by all iGrid T&D solu­tions, in addi­tion to other­ad­vanced tech­no­log­i­cal fea­tures and func­tion­al­i­ties for all kind of ener­gy appli­ca­tions and requirements.

    As a client you can ben­e­fit from a unique­ly flex­i­ble and scal­able all-in-one solu­tion that is easy to use and will min­i­mize your costs through­out the entire project.

    Solution Benefits & Functions

    N

    From ModbusRTU to IEC 61850

    N

    IEC 61850 MMS & GOOSE support

    N

    Map any old protocol/ IED to IEC 61850

    N

    From ModbusRTU to ModbusTCP

    N

    Conversions between Serial, Ethernet and GPRS media

    N

    From DLMS to any CC protocol

    N

    Integration of IoT networks

    N

    From industrial to IP communication

    N

    Older protocols like SPAbus, Mlink or Procome

    N

    A‑Level certified IEC 61850 compliance

    N

    Tailored solutions according to your needs

    N

    State-of-the-art IEC 61850 technology

    N

    Customized training & support

    N

    Remote maintenance/ testing

    N

    Reliable and efficient protection functions

    N

    PRP network redundancy

    N

    Graphical visualization of measurements & data

    N

    Remote substation monitoring and control 

    N

    Full interoperability

    N

    Optimized efficiency and productivity

    N

    Local & global alarm generation

    N

    Complex logic schemes

    N

    High-precision timestamping and event recording

    N

    Fault location detection

    N

    Automatic switching sequences

    N

    No need for auxiliary relays and hardwired interfaces

    N

    PLC automation with IEC 61131–3

    N

    Engineering & maintenance cost reduction

    N

    iControl or 3rd party SCADA

    N

    Customized solution

    N

    Automatic interlocking supervision

    N

    Automatic data storage

    N

    Supervisory control

    N

    Reduced space for human error

    N

    Comissioning cost reduction

    N

    Fault diagnostics

    N

    Reduced wiring

    N

    Improved reliability & security 

    N

    Simple connection between IED and substation HMI

    N

    Simple device set-up/ deployment

    N

    Simple retrofits

    N

    High-speed, intelligent interlocking with GOOSE

    Protocol Conversion Solutions

    • Con­ver­sion between Ser­i­al and Eth­er­net (e.g. Mod­bus RTU vs ModbusTCP)
    • Con­ver­sion between old and new protocols
    • Map­ping of any pro­to­col to IEC 61850
    • IEC 61850 pub­lish­er /subscriber
    • Bridge to IT and IoT net­works
    • SCADA with Gate­way functionalities
    • Sub­sta­tion RTU
    • Sub­sta­tion Gateway
    • Remote & dis­trib­uted I/Os

    Full Independence for an Open Architecture

    All of our prod­ucts sup­port sev­er­al types of com­mu­ni­ca­tion media, such as wire­less (GPRS/ 3g, 4g), VSAT, ana­log radio, Eth­er­net or Ser­i­al, and can com­mu­ni­cate with the entire iGrid T&D pro­to­col suite. Thanks to our expe­ri­ences with devices from almost all known ven­dors and our pledge for stan­dard pro­to­cols, we can ensure the seam­less inte­gra­tion of our prod­ucts with any third par­ty devices.

    Sleep Peacefully with Expert Cyber Security 

    iGrid T&D enforces sev­er­al lay­ers of secu­ri­ty mea­sures guid­ed by the propo­si­tions of the IEC 62351 stan­dard to pro­tect its devices from all kinds of threats.

    Our hard­ened devices fea­ture Role Based Access Con­trol (RBAC) to avoid intrin­sic risks such as secu­ri­ty holes and unau­tho­rized actions by authen­ti­cat­ed users.
    In addi­tion to end-to-end encryp­tions via TSL/SSL, HTTPS, SSH and stan­dard pro­ce­dures for VPNs (e.g. Open­VPN), its com­mu­ni­ca­tion can also be secured with net­work con­trol meth­ods such as fire­walls, IP fil­ters, ACL or TCP port blocks.

    Hot-Standby Redundancy

    All of our devices can oper­ate in hot-stand­by redun­dan­cy mode:

    • Hot-stand­by server/device is updat­ed continuously
    • Clients and IEDs auto­mat­i­cal­ly switch to the hot-stand­by server
    • Ser­i­al loop redun­dan­cy (hot stand­by gate­way acts as a (vir­tu­al) ser­i­al port to arrive to dis­con­nect­ed devices)

    Network Redundancy

    All of our devices can pro­vide RSTP, HSR & PRP (IEC 62439–3) redundancy

    • Mod­ern sub­sta­tion automa­tion with­out pack­et loss­es and latencies
    • Invis­i­ble to the appli­ca­tion and usable by most indus­tri­al Eth­er­net protocols
    • For appli­ca­tions requir­ing high avail­abil­i­ty and quick switchovers

    Related Projects

    Integrated Switchgear Controller

    SGC195, the new switchgear con­troller devel­oped by EDP and iGrid T&D com­bines RTU and pro­tec­tion relay fea­tures in one device to reduce the cost of the whole project.

    Railway MV Substation Control

    In this project the iGW con­verts from IEC 101 to IEC104 in order to com­fort­ably expand the SCADA sys­tem of the metro lines, using high tech­nol­o­gy switch­es and SDH equip­ment via Eth­er­net. The iGW con­trols the low pow­er sub­sta­tions (380 Volt­age grid) by read­ing the data from a SIEMENS PLC via IEC 101, map­ping it to IEC104, and send­ing it to the exist­ing SCADA Con­trol Center.

    Communications Control Center

    In this project iCon­trol was imple­ment­ed as SCADA sys­tem (serv­er with float­ing clients) to super­vise and con­trol all com­mu­ni­ca­tion facil­i­ties (includ­ing radio base sta­tions, com­mu­ni­ca­tion links, UPS sys­tems, and CERs) of a major Span­ish elec­tri­cal util­i­ty  via Mod­bus TCP, IEC 104 and SNMP. 

    MV Grid Distribution Control Center

    In this project, iCon­trol is based on a client/server archi­tec­ture with 4 oper­a­tors con­trol­ling 4,000 mul­ti­ven­dor RTUs via IEC60870‑5–104, IEC60870‑5–101 and DNP3.0, through the pub­lic GPRS net­work, in the 25kV dis­tri­b­u­tion grid of Buenos Aires. 

    Protocol Conversion Solutions

    iGW‑S Substation Gateway

    Pow­er­ful and reli­able sub­sta­tion gate­way, able to run either in stand­alone or redun­dant modes, with an embed­ded Eth­er­net switch (4 ports) and IEC 61850 client and serv­er capabilities.

    The Slimmest Gateway

    The iGWlite comes with 1 Eth­er­net, 1 RS485/RS422 and an option­al RS-232 port (cop­per or fiber) or a 2G/3G/4G mode tak­ing lit­tle space on a DIN-Rail, but still employ­ing the full iGrid pro­to­col stack.

    iControl SCADA

    High-per­for­mance SCADA for the visu­al­iza­tion and con­trol of sub­sta­tion data. It is able to run either in client/server or stand­alone modes, pro­vid­ing advanced func­tion­al­i­ties such as hot-stand­by redun­dan­cy, auto­mat­ic line col­or­ing, events noti­fi­ca­tion (via e‑mail and sms), SQL log­ging, and reports generation.

    iRTU – With I/Os for Direct Data Acquisition 

    Com­pact and scal­able bay con­troller which can act as IEC 61850 client or serv­er, fea­tur­ing con­fig­urable I/O boards for direct data acqui­si­tion, high-pre­ci­sion time­stamp­ing and an option­al Eth­er­net switch for addi­tion­al Eth­er­net ports.

    iRTUe – Remote I/O Extensions 

    iGWs, iRTUs and third par­ty mas­ter units can be freely extend­ed by con­nect­ing one or sev­er­al iRTUe.

    They are IEC 61850 (GOOSE) com­pli­ant and come in many con­fig­u­ra­tions such as 48 DI, 16 relays, 16 AI, 24 DI + 8 relays, 24 DI + 8 AI or 8 relays + 8 AI.

    iGrid Solutions and Applications

    Automation with IEC 61850 

    The IEC 61850 stan­dard is enabling new opor­tu­ni­ties for ven­dor inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and advanced sub­sta­tion automa­tion. Find out how you can take advan­tage of IEC 61850 with easy-to-use and adapt­able solu­tions for a sim­ple migra­tion or retrofit.

    HV Substation Automation

    Pow­er­ful sub­sta­tion automa­tion sys­tems often han­dle numer­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols and media with­in one net­work, which can result in expen­sive and com­plex projects.  Avoid these prob­lems with inter­op­er­a­ble tech­nol­o­gy and smart con­fig­u­ra­tion tools.

    MV Distribution Grid Automation

    It is often dif­fi­cult to find the exact solu­tion you need in a MV appli­ca­tion, lead­ing to high­er costs than nec­es­sary. With our scal­able and adapt­able solu­tions you will be able to only pay for what you real­ly need, with­out com­prim­is­ing on qual­i­ty or security.

    Photovoltaic Power Station

    Using an open and scal­able SCADA sys­tem to mon­i­tor and con­trol a PV plant comes with many ben­e­fits on sev­er­al lev­els. Find out how advanced com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy affects PV oper­a­tion, main­te­nance, sys­tem design, invest­ment secu­ri­ty, profits…

    Do you need more information?

    We are hap­py to assist you!

     

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