Integrated communication solution for oil and gas safety systems

Abstract

The telecommunication system on today’s oil installation consist of a number of different communication systems such as UHF radio (Ultra High Frequency), VHF radio (Very High Frequency), PABX (Private Automatic Branch eXchange), and PA (Public Address and Alarm). These communication systems have their own control panels. In addition these systems use various communication technologies for transportation of voice and data. The operators have to deal with each of these control panels to operate these systems under normal and critical situations. In critical situations it can be crucial for the operators to act fast and correct to maintain control over the situation. This can be a demanding job especially when they have to deal with many different control panels simultaneously. Normally these control panels have similar layout with similar functions. This makes it possible to integrate these systems and to use one common integrated user interface to operate these systems. This thesis is confined to deal with the integration of the PA system and the UHF system. The Integrated Safety Systems (ISS) is primarily a safety system developed according to the NORSOK standard T-100 [1]. Besides, no single error shall cause this safety system to become dysfunctional. One of the main tasks has been to evaluate a common communication technology for transportation of voice and data between the subsystems (PA and UHF) and the control panels. The different communication technologies we have evaluated for this purpose are various IP solutions, G.703 [2] solutions and a combination of these two solutions. After evaluating six different proposals for a common transportation technology, we decided to continue our work with the combination solution. It is based on a centralized communication switch using G.703 for internal communication. The control panels and the communication switch are connected by a TCP/IP connection over Ethernet. This solution takes advantage of the OPC [3] technology for control and monitoring of the ISS. OPC is a standard developed for industrial automation systems, so this will be a new application for the technology. Another task has been to make a proposal for a common integrated user interface for the PA system and the UHF system. This thesis describes the layout and functionality intended for the touch screen control panels, pushbutton control panels and the microphone stations. In addition we have made four proposals for functional design specifications describing different parts of the ISS. The intention of the functional design specifications is to provide enough information on how to design the proposed solution.