IED Configurator Tool (ICT)

The Main Window

On the main window, the user has an overview of all the intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) and their components, data types, communication configuration, and header of the configuration document. As control is selected, its properties and relevant information are displayed in a dedicated panel. Log messages with the timeline of the configurations as well as warnings and problems within the configuration files are also displayed. The window also contains a configuration panel that provides the means to configure the controls from the document tree while having an overview of all the information needed on just one screen.

Intelligent Electronic Device (IED)

From the tree view, the user can have access to IED Protocol Settings and Upload Configuration File windows through the context menu in the IED tree node, which also provides many other options of configurations such as Rename, Add Connect Ap, Convert to Config File and Delete. New IEDs can be added by right-clicking on the document node and selecting “Add IED“. Another important feature to configure the file is the possibility to drag and drop IEDs from other documents, The tool makes it possible to safely merge the IED with its Data Types, Subnetwork, ConnectedAp, and all the sub controls that belong to the source IED into the target document.

Predefined Values Configuration

From a Logical Node or Data Object in the tree view, it is possible to open the Predefined Values Configurator and add Data Attributes Definitions (DAI) allowing the definition of instance values for data attributes in the data model. Such a feature is easily configured by dragging and dropping Data Objects and Data Attributes in the editor area which creates Data Attributes Definition (DAI) within Data Objects Definition (DOI). The DAI values can be easily set in the table and are checked for correct type and reasonable values. The Predefined Value Editor shows values from the data types in grey and allows the user to override them by instance values (DAI elements in the IED section).

IED Protocol Settings

The IED Protocol Setting can be accessed from the tree view in the IED node. The window for the Settings contains the information of the IED selected as name and Model and three blocks of fields to be configured as TCP/IP Settings, ISO Settings, and Security.

Data Types Templates

From the tree view, the user has access to the Data Types Templates, with an overview of its content in the Properties panel in the main window. From that is possible to have a better understanding of the structure of IEDs. The user can have access to the properties of each Data Type as the ID and the elements within it. For example, the Logical Node type is built from Data Objects elements, which have DO Types that consist of Data Attributes.

Upload Configuration to IED

The tool makes it possible to Upload the files from the menu bar “Target“ → “Upload“, from the first node of the document, and from the IED to upload a Configurated File. The communication can be made through File Transfer Protocol or MMS protocol (upcoming version).

DataSet Configuration

An easy-to-use data set configuration is essential for many IED configuration tasks because data sets are required for many IEC 61850 services.

With IEDConfigurator Lite data sets are easily configurated from the main window. From the tree view, it is possible to add, remove, and rename data sets and configure the data set entries (Functionally Constrained Data – FCD). Data Objects and Data Attributes are added to
the DataSet to create new FCDs by dragging and dropping from the tree view to the DataSet editor, as well as to the DataSet tree node. From the DataSet editor, it is possible to remove multiple selected FCDs and reorder them by dragging them to the desired position.

Convert to Configuration File

IED can be converted to Configuration Files from a context menu in the tree view in the IED node. The Configuration File consists of the description of the IED with it all the Logical Devices, Logical Nodes, Data Objects, Data Attributes, and Control Blocks like Report Control, Log Control, and more. The description of those items consists of properties like name, configuration, and important information about the item.

History

The History, and timeline of the document configuration, can be found at the top of the tree view. The History consists of several item entries with the following attributes: version, revision, when, who, what, and why. The user can fill in these attributes to keep track of each version of the SCL file. From the menu bar “Edit“ → “History Configuration” it is possible to set a user name for the history configuration and determine the tool to add a new history item always when the SCL file is saved. In that way the user can keep better track of all modifications.

Control Block Configuration

The configuration for Control Blocks such as Report Control (RCB), Log Control (LCB), Sampled Value Control (SMV), and others are accessible from the tree view and have all the necessary properties to be correctly configured. In addition to the common properties of the
Control Blocks as “name”, “description“ and others, the configuration editor has the fields necessary to configure each Control Block with its specifications. For example, on the Report Control (RCB) editor beyond the attributes like “buffered“ that can be identified from the tree view which contains a different icon label for buffered and unbuffered, it also contains the “Trigger Options“, “Optional Fields“ and “Report Enable“. The Report Enable contains a list of client Logical Nodes that can be configured manually from the editor or the user can drag and drop the client IED from the tree view. Whereas the Log Control (LCB) configuration uses “Trigger Options“ to log data from the DataSet into the Log when the trigger chosen option occurs. Issues with the configuration of the controls are reported to the user through the issues table on the main window. . The issued warnings can be removed after the problem is solved, making the configuration of the document more reliable when the user can track the work and solve integrity problem during the running time of the tool.

Communication System Configuration

The tool makes it possible to configure the direct communication connection between Subnetworks and IED access points. From the tree view, the user has access to the Subnetworks, Connected Aps related to the IED access points, and all their content. In Subnetwork it is
possible to configure each Connected Ap that can be removed or added from the IED node. Within the Connected Aps the user can find the Address parameters of the access point as well as the GSE and SMV address definitions. The user has also access to the configuration
editor for all these items in the Subnetwork. The SMV and GSE address definition configuration can be accessed from the tree view and it has all the necessary properties to be correctly configured. Moreover, in these configuration editors, the user can find a direct link from the SMV or GSE address definition to the correspondent SMV and GSE control in the access point, this is made by a button on the configurator that leads to the correct control. This functionality also works in reverse, when in the control on the Logical Node, is possible to go directly to the correspondent in the Subnetwork.