Building automation with VIPA technology
Since 1993, the AUDI HUNGARIA MOTOR Kft. has been developing and producing motors for AUDI AG and other Volkswagen Group brands in Györ, Hungary. In June 2013, the company started production of the A3 limousine and convertible models, the first Audi models to be exclusively produced at the Hungarian location. For this reason, Audi established a new automobile factory with a complete production chain - starting from the pressing plant to the body construction, paint spray line, and the mounting.
VIPA controls parts of the building automation
Prozesstechnik Kropf GmbH, located in Oberkotzau, Germany, completed the conception, process control engineering, and plant implementation. VIPA controllers make up approximately 40% of the new factory’s building automation. The VIPA controllers are used for energy distribution and ventilation technology in the pressing plant, paint spray line, mounting, and pressing plant operations. The controllers are also used in different extraction units, for example, at two aluminum grinding machines within the car body construction and the logistics.
The central CPUs for PROFIBUS and Ethernet communication are the 315-4NE12 and the 315-4PN12 for PROFIBUS and PROFINET communication. The decentralized communication is carried out by PROFIBUS and Modbus protocols and by EnOcean.
Operating and monitoring the process control engineering are carried out by the VIPA 10 inch touch panels, TP610C. They include the preinstalled Windows Embedded CE6.0 operating system and partial Zenon Runtime 6.22.
A solution exactly suitable with VIPA components
There are many reasons for the deployment of VIPA SLIO modules in combination with the fast SPEED7 300S family of CPUs. The 300S CPU family combines the classic compact 300S type with enormous speed advantages of the integrated SPEED7 technology. Meanwhile, the SLIO modules offer speed advantages because of its fast backplane bus with 48Mbits/sec transmission rates and are extremely compact thanks to its space-saving design. Additionally, global use is possible since almost all standard transmission protocols can be transmitted decentralized.
This additional example of functional interaction of process control engineering and PLC control technology shows that even in a very demanding field, this solution achieves successful results.