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A remote terminal unit (RTU) is a microprocessor-controlled electronic device that interfaces objects in the physical world to a distributed control system or SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system by transmitting telemetry data to a master system, and by using messages from the master supervisory system to control connected objects. [1]
In smaller SCADA systems, the supervisory computer may be composed of a single PC, in which case the HMI is a part of this computer. In larger SCADA systems, the master station may include several HMIs hosted on client computers, multiple servers for data acquisition, distributed software applications, and disaster recovery sites.
It plays a crucial role in SCADA systems, where it is used by SCADA Master Stations (a.k.a. Control Centers), Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), and Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs). It is primarily used for communications between a master station and RTUs or IEDs.
Most IEDs have a communication port and built-in support for standard communication protocols (DNP3, IEC104 or IEC61850), so they can communicate directly with the SCADA system or a substation programmable logic controller. Alternatively, they can be connected to a substation RTU that acts as a gateway towards the SCADA server. [2]
The term usually describes environments containing industrial control systems (ICS), such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, distributed control system (DCS), remote terminal units (RTU) and programmable logic controllers (PLC), as well as dedicated networks and organization units. The built environment, whether ...
A SCADA system uses remote terminal units (RTUs) to send supervisory data back to a control centre. Most RTU systems always had some capacity to handle local control while the master station is not available. However, over the years RTU systems have grown more and more capable of handling local control.
The gateway processor approach is similar to the networked server except it is intended for legacy systems with minimal communications networking capability and so has the lowest performance. In the most minimal situation the ICCP gateway may communicate with the SCADA host via a serial port in a similar manner to the SCADA RTUs.
A distributed control system (DCS) is a computerized control system for a process or plant usually with many control loops, in which autonomous controllers are distributed throughout the system, but there is no central operator supervisory control. This is in contrast to systems that use centralized controllers; either discrete controllers ...