Speaking at the Energy Conference Network’s 2018 internet of things in oil and gas (the 4th annual event), Steve Sponseller from PTC’s Kepware oil and gas unit and Doug Smith from refiner Texmark presented on digital twins in oil and gas, with a special mention of Texmark’s ‘refinery of the future’ (RotF). The Internet of Things-based program combines sensor data aggregation, real time operations intelligence and analytics at the edge to support automated feedstock replenishment, predictive and condition-based maintenance and HSE.
Sponseller’s talk presented the contributions of PTC/Kepware and Rockwell, although many other companies are involved in the effort*. The Rockwell/PTC contribution to the RotF is ‘comprehensive and flexible’ IoT offering leveraging Rockwell’s industrial control technology along with Kepware’s ThingWorx multi-vendor connectivity.
The RotF comprises various ‘IoT’ projects including Lidar point-cloud-based ‘as is’ video mapping, an equipment health dashboard, ATEX-certified tablets and wearable situational awareness technology in the form of Realware’s HMT-1. The hands-free Android tablet-class wearable computer for industrial workers blends the real and virtual worlds showing for example, a P&ID view of equipment to a mobile worker.
Sponseller also presented work done with Australian Nova’s on a digital twin proof of concept for the upstream that combines data analytics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize operation and maintenance, perform monitoring and forecasting.
Another PTC-backed IoT solution comes from Tory Technologies, in the form of ‘Smada’, supervisory measurement acquisition and data analytics, a ‘boosted’ scada for the IoT. More from Kepware and from ECN.
* RotF is a joint venture between Texmark, HPE, Aruba, ENIOS Technologies, National Instruments, OSIsoft, DXC Technology and Intel. More from Texmark.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.