A blackboard application for process monitoring and supervision

This paper describes the architecture of a supervisory control and data-acquisition system. It works like an operator support tool by diagnosing malfunctions of a production process and inspecting the quality of the product. The system provides the operator in a plant with relevant process data and, at the same time, has to meet tough real-time requirements. The integration of intelligent alarm processing into a large supervisory control system will be described and techniques covering on-line processing of real-time data and intelligent alarm processing will be discussed. The system is based on a blackboard architecture which integrates a sequence of problem-solving methods and exhibits an incremental and opportunistic problem-solving style.