uSysCom‘s product portfolio consists of communications equipment capable of meeting the needs of information exchange which have arisen with the recent and progressive implementation of the
IEC61850 standard. The interoperability of the different elements which comprise the 61850 Substation model is a fact in uSysCom products, which have certificates of conformity issued by independent laboratories.
The IEC61850 standard chooses Ethernet as a communications network, making Managed Switches the basic elements which must ensure the correct and efficient transmission of control and protection messages between different IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices). The Switches from the
SWT family are equipped with “full-duplex wire speed” functionality and also incorporate advanced functions such as
VLANs,
RSTP (Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol), Broadcast Storm Control, Quality of Service (
QoS) and
SNMP Management.
The following figure shows an example of an Ethernet network in a substation bus. The most-used network topology is the ring, where it is common to use redundant optical fibre links. Star or mixed topologies are also possible.
uSysCom also offers 61850 Micro remotes (RTUs) which are used as line, transformer and auxiliary remotes. They allow for the reception of trigger commands (GOOSES) on the position switch (itself or the rest of the positions). Likewise, they receive commands from the position IED and the Local HMI, and send signal status reports via GOOSE, as well as via the HMI protocol.
Another aspect worth taking into account is synchronisation. The IEC61850 standard recommends the use of the SNTP synchronisation protocol for the synchronisation of all of the elements in the network. uSysCom offers an NTP synchroniser (GPS) capable of performing the functions of an NTP server, distributing the synchronisation to the rest of the substations’ IEDs.