Incorporation of Splitter Units into Process Instrumentation and Control Systems with an RS-485 Interfaces

The article addresses matters concerned with achieving more reliable operation of a process instrumentation and control system (PICS) taking as an example the relay processing based electrical interlocking system, which uses an RS-485 interface. It is proposed to incorporate splitter units into the RS-485 interface, a solution that makes it possible to achieve more reliable operation of the automatic and remote-control system and decrease the damage when monitoring and control of facilities is lost. The use of splitter units facilitates and speeds up the process of finding and replacing failed monitoring and control cards, specifically, matrix input devices and discrete end devices. It is shown that splitter units can also be incorporated in other PICS, the components of which use the RS-485 serial interface. The article is intended for specialists in automation, automatic and remote-control systems, as well as for researchers who deal with achieving more reliable and efficient operation of PICS.