SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition but it is a term often used for data collection and presentation.
SCADA is normally a software package designed to display information, log data and show alarms. This can be graphical and tabular and can involve words and pictures (or mimics). The software would normally be installed on a computer on the customers site and all the various signals would be wired back to the central point, or marshalled and gathered using some form of bus system.
SCADA can be used to monitor and control plant or equipment. The control may be automatic, or initiated by operator commands. The data acquisition is accomplished firstly by the RTU’s (remote Terminal Units, in our case the IN4MA) The central host will scan the RTU’s or the RTU’s will report in Data can be of three main types. Analogue data (i.e. real numbers) will be trended (ie placed in graphs). Digital data (on/off) may have alarms attached to one state or the other. Pulse data (e.g. counting revolutions of a meter) is normally accumulated or counted