Triple Modular Redundancy For Process Control March 18, 2004

POMPANO BEACH, Fla.-March 18, 2004-For mission-critical processes and applications, there’s no substitute for Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR).

RTP has created a new TMR architecture designed specifically for process control. The 2300-T HICS High Integrity Control System ensures the highest integrity and the highest availability of user data. It utilizes voting routines to ensure the process is protected and-equally important-that expensive downtime is eliminated.
Better Than Traditional TMR

An 2300-T has more flexibility than traditional TMR systems. Where past TMR systems were limited because of the hardware used to synchronize CPUs and because their I/O was not distributable, RTP has taken advantage of today’s high speed networking technology-including high-speed logic switching and a fast Ethernet-based I/O bus-to do away with the limiting hardware required for older systems. As a result, the three controllers that comprise the 2300-T can be housed separately to ensure survivability in a catastrophe, such as a fire.

Additional I/O chassis can be located remotely from the three controllers to eliminate the high cost and complexity of homerun wiring.

To ensure added availability, a dual-powered chassis can be added for both processor and I/O.

Where requirements may dictate several redundant processors, the 2300-T ensures process integrity and availability for less cost and less complexity. High-Integrity Validation Redundancy protects against hardware failure for high system availability, but does not provide for error checking. The RTP HICS is suited for high-integrity, fault checking applications. Its high-integrity communications are validated using advanced built-in CRC routines on both the host and the I/O bus. For critical operations, such as program changes, special routines check and recheck the program validity. Outputs from all three processors are sent to the I/O chassis where the voting occurs, as close to the process as possible.

An Extended Family of Voting Systems

RTP offers a complete family of high-integrity voting systems for process control.

• 2300-T: For the highest level of integrity and availability, the 2300-T Triple Modular Redundant system features voting with triple, dual or common I/O, as required.
• 2300-D: The 2300-D HICS is built on the same advanced technology as 2300-T, for a dual-redundant solution. The voting solution uses advanced diagnostics to assist in results adjudication. The 2300-D features dual-redundant processors, triple, dual or common I/O as required, and up to 32 remote I/O chassis, all built upon the same components and configuration environment (RTP NetSuite) as the 2300-T.

Both the 2300-T and 2300-D support a medium to large distributed control system architecture of up to 10,000 I/O points per node.

For smaller systems, the Micro2000D series HICS also provides a voting solution using dual processors and I/O. The Micro2000D series uses a subset of the same components as the 2300-T, and RTP NetSuite.

HICS Architecture

The RTP High-Integrity Control System architecture is extremely scalable, flexible, and incorporates multiple levels of redundancy. Its unique design is built upon a set of standard hardware and software components that supports multiple factory-configured applications. These standard components (processors, chassis, I/O and configuration environment are designed to be configured different systems ranging from single controller or dual redundant up to a triple-modular redundant solution.