SIMATIC Route Control, which is fully integrated in SIMATIC PCS 7, is modular and scalable. It can be flexibly adapted to various sizes of plants by cumulatively adding SIMATIC Route Control routes (in sets of 10 and 50 for the number of simultaneous material transports) up to a project limit of 300 routes. SIMATIC Route Control provides graded user privileges for engineering, operating and maintenance personnel who are integrated into the user administration with SIMATIC logon. SIMATIC Logon is an integral component of SIMATIC PCS 7.

Route Control in the engineering system

The Route Control Engineering tool, the Route Control Library and the Route Control Wizard are concentrated together with the other engineering tools of the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system in the central engineering system.

In SIMATIC PCS 7, blocks from a SIMATIC PCS 7 library are inserted into CFC plans and connected to plant control blocks in accordance with the technological requirements in order to control and monitor the elements of a plant. These individual connections are omitted with SIMATIC Route Control (RC). You adapt the standard blocks of the technological elements relevant to RC (RC elements) using standardized interface blocks from the RC library, and allow RC to control and monitor the elements during operation. This is of course also possible with existing plantswithout an increased overhead.

The blocks of the RC library support redundancy at the controller level, i.e. they can be used with standard automation systems or even with fault-tolerant automation systems or mixed configurations. The changes in the engineering system can be recorded (Change log), both in the SIMATIC PCS 7 project and in the RC project.

Route Control wizard

The Route Control Assistant functions as the interface between the PCS 7 basic configuration expanded by RC components and the RC engineering tool. It analyzes the hardware and software configuration of the SIMATIC PCS 7 (multi-)project, and generates a database which serves as the basis for further, RC-specific configuration with the RC engineering tool.

During the RC-specific configuration, the elements imported from the SIMATIC PCS 7 project by the Route Control Assistant must be inserted into a sub-route structure. These sub-routes divide the plant. The complete routes will be subsequently "joined together" from them during the automatic route searching. The response of the sub-routes in a particular function are already defined when inserting the elements into them. Functions represent the technological requirements when operating the plant (e.g. "Open source", "Pumps" etc.).

As a rule: the more finely divided the sub-route structure, the more flexible the subsequent automatic route searching. With purely static routes, a sub-route can already be a complete route.

Route Control Server/Route Control Center

Following configuration of the route network and testing of the material transport versions, the Route Control configuration data is transferred to the Route Control server. There they can be activated via the Route Control Center at a suitable point in time from the process engineering viewpoint. From this time onwards, the new data are included in route searches.

If a material transport is pending during operation, a route (material transport) is requested by the controller (e.g. using an adapted RC SFC type) or by the operator on the Route Control Center. In addition to selection of the origin and destination as well as up to 10 intermediate plant points (synonyms: nodes, locations), this also includes the application of a start signal on the route control block RC_IF_ROUTE in the automation system (AS). The AS "informs" the RC Server which then starts searching for the route and – if possible – combines the statically defined sub-routes into a complete transport route. From this point onward, the Route Control takes over control and monitoring of all RC elements involved in the transport route. If faults occur, detailed diagnostics information is provided concerning the cause, e.g. why the search for a suitable transport route was unsuccessful. The plant control program only switches the individual technological functions, everything else is handled by the Route Control.

The Route Control Server (RC Server) supplies the Route Control Clients (Route Control Center) with the necessary data and transfers their operations to the automation systems.

For maintenance purposes, an automation system can be specifically set to "in maintenance" (out of service). The material transports being carried out by this automation system are still continued until finished. However, new material transports are no longer permitted.

RC block symbols and faceplates

In the process displays of the SIMATIC PCS 7 operator systems, each route block is represented by an RC block symbol and an RC faceplate. Through a route block's RC block symbol it is possible to select its RC faceplate, and through a route block's RC faceplate it is possible to select the Route Control Center.