Secure Plant Operations Data Network

Many AEDC personnel are tasked with supporting facility operations by providing testing support, instrumentation support, facilities engineering and facilities maintenance. This requires personnel to spend some of their time in their normally assigned work areas and portions of their time in and around test cells, wind tunnel control areas, and on the wind tunnels themselves. The AEDC plant areas are equipped with a plant-wide paging system consisting of outdoor speakers. The sound quality of these broadcast paging messages is highly variable and dependent on the location of the listener in relation to the speakers and the level of background noise. As such, these messages are often difficult to understand. Streamline Automation proposes to develop a Secure Plant Operations Data Network that will enable voice communications between personnel using mobile devices and others within the AEDC facility, and will enable access to a variety of server-hosted documents and applications. The proposed prototype network will be designed to operate within the overall enterprise network architecture framework. The Phase 2 prototype system will build on the capabilities demonstrated and features evaluated during the Phase 1 project. BENEFIT: The challenges of communicating in plant spaces experienced at AEDC are by no means unique. Most power plants and industrial facilities have areas with high background noise levels that may vary based on plant operations. In these areas hearing protection is required, which hampers voice communications. Additionally, sound quality is highly variable in outdoor areas of the plant and depends on the relative location of the listener and the system loud speaker, and intervening obstacles. The proposed voice and data communications system offers an attractive alternative to plant paging systems and provides additional capabilities that a plant paging system could never provide, such as access to documents on network servers. AEDC will gain several advantages from implementing a plant voice and data communications system: 1. Improved voice communications with personnel working in plant spaces. 2. The option to use text messaging when communicating with personnel in areas with high background noise levels. 3. Enabling users in the field to access their or communal documents in a plant network document management system. 4. The ability to track users and equipment within plant spaces to improve the safety and efficiency of operations.