Integrating Serial Sensor Data with a Mobile SCADA System

Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, is a process that involves injecting sand and water at high pressure into bedrock formations to increase the production of oil and gas. Vehicles, often termed “data vans,” house important monitoring equipment. Serial sensors used directly at the fracking site such as pressure meters, flow transmitters, and engine and pump monitoring sensors communicate safety-critical data.

To ensure that the fracking process is safe and efficient, critical serial data from the various sensors used must be converted to Ethernet and reliably transmitted to the SCADA system.

Pepperl+Fuchs DeviceMaster 16- or 32-port serial gateways handle the critical role of converting the sensor data from serial to Ethernet. Designed to convert data from field devices to TCP/IP and industrial Ethernet protocols like EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, and MODBUS TCP, the family of serial-to-Ethernet converters and industrial gateways facilitates communication between sensors at the fracking site and the SCADA system.

Incorporating a serial gateway like the DeviceMaster ensures that critical sensor data is communicated to the SCADA system. If a pump is down or pressure is too high, the associated data is be sent to the system so the problem can be resolved quickly and easily.

• Serial sensors transmit safety critical data during the fracking process
• Serial gateways (DeviceMaster) convert the serial data into Ethernet and transmit them to a SCADA system
• Reliable data transmission via Ethernet enables fast trouble-shooting
• Simultaneous support for the RS-232/422/485 and MODBUS RTU/ASCII serial protocols in one device
• Configurable baud rates between 300 bit/s and 230 Kbit/s
• Configuration of all serial parameters such as parity, data bits, and separators via web browser and the Pepperl+Fuchs software PortVision DX
• Autodiscover, manage, and save/load DeviceMaster configurations with PortVision DX