#7 2024

CONTENTS №7

Rogova E.S.  Functional safety communication protocols in industrial automation

Russian industry is actively developing, and the production of programmable logic controllers (PLCs) is no exception. As is known, key manufacturers of foreign PLCs have left Russia, and many production sites will need sooner or later to replace foreign equipment. The Russian market can offer domestic PLCs but almost none of them is certified in accordance with the requirements of functional safety standards in laboratories with global authority, such as TÜV SÜD Rail GmbH, Exida, and others. However, certification in such laboratories is now impossible due to sanctions. In this context, many PLC manufacturers address Russian certification companies, which guarantee voluntary certification within a few weeks. PLC buyers of SIL 1-3 products are confident that thus certified equipment will meet the necessary requirements. Unfortunately, this is often not the case, and it is necessary to have certain knowledge to identify the discrepancies. Against this background, the paper discusses a key component of PLC functional safety: communication protocols for exchanging safety-related data. It shows the difference between standard protocols and functional safety ones, examines data exchange in safety instrumentation systems, and reviews the compliance of communication protocols with functional safety requirements based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of communication errors.

Keywords: communication protocol, communication safety level, programmable logic controller, safety integrity level, SIL, communication safety precautions.

Discussing a Topic…

Information security in industrial automation

Livshits I.I.  Investigating the influence of imposed security measures on the estimate of safety integrity level for the objects of critical information infrastructure

Ensuring the security of objects of critical information infrastructure (CII) is still relevant because of the known recent incidents and the compromise of process control components. The expert community acknowledges the need for evaluating the safety integrity level as a quantitative measure suitable for security development of process control components. Several approaches for ensuring CII object security are available, which include two basic ones. The first one presumes SIL calculation for process control components with subsequent development of the quantitative overall functional security (secure by design), the second one is based on imposed (additional) security protection measures aimed at ensuring the mandatory security level for potentially vulnerable components. The paper offers a new procedure enabling the assessment in SIL terms of all CII objects including both embedded security functions and imposed protection measures. It proposes to evaluate SIL on the basis of IEC 61508 through calculating the average probability of failure on demand (PFDavg).

Keywords: functional safety, safety integrity level, system, object of critical information infrastructure, audit, reliability, risk analysis, residual risk, imposed security protection measures.

Sagaidak D.A.  Video data processing software aimed at two-channel data separation for security purposes

The paper discusses the development of software for a video data processing system, which separates the frames of video data stream in two parallel communication channels for protecting them against cyber interventions. Each frame called a secret is split into two unequal parts communicated through separate channels with different capacities. The capacities of two channels are optimized by minimizing the weighted sum of time and cost expenses for secure video data transfer. A mathematical relationship between data transfer delay time and the capacities of communication channels is obtained; the experiments prove its practical applicability. The software developed enables the evaluation of optimal capacities of data communication channels for the demultiplexing of frame shares of the video data stream transferred as well as the estimation of overall system maintenance costs.

Keywords: information protection, secret splitting, video data, channel capacity, demultiplexing, multiplexing, cyber intervention.

Turov V.  Air threat: how to protect industrial sites from civil drones

Civil UAV and drone threat currently contribute to existing industrial safety and information security threats. Appropriate protection systems are being developed for eliminating these threats. The paper outlines such solutions from Kaspersky Antidrone.

Keywords: industrial safety, information security, civil drones, UAV protection systems.

Basynin N.A.  Malware: investigation of behavior and dissemination channels

The paper investigates malware types most frequently used in cyberattacks and its most popular delivery channels. Malicious actions are analyzed and compared to Mitre Att&ck techniques. Measures to be taken for malware prevention are proposed.

Keywords: malware, cyberattacks, cyber security, legitimate OS functions, email, encryptors, spyware.

Slabodchikov A.A., Ladokho E.P.  Rapid inspection of information security processes in process control systems of electrical substations

Information security in power industry is discussed. The experience of Belarus Republic in rapid assessments of process control systems of electrical substations is presented. Key areas of cyber security and information protection development for opposing complex threats are highlighted.

Keywords: cyber security, information infrastructure, rapid assessment, power industry.

Levitin A.V.  Texture anomaly detection in semi-finished leather images in the absence of learning samples

The paper examines the problem of detecting the areas with abnormal textures in semi-finished leather images in product quality co0ntrol procedures in the absence of possible anomaly samples. It presents the results of comparative experimental analysis of the Isolation Forest algorithm, which does not use texture samples, one-class SVM, which uses only normal texture samples, and the LDA procedure, which employs both normal and abnormal textures.

Keywords: texture anomalies, leather texture, machine learning, local binary patterns, local texture signs, support vector machine, Isolation Forest, linear discriminant analysis, machine vision. Texture signs of image element are developed by estimating the densities of local binary patterns of each type in the element’s vicinity.

Serjantov A.C., Volkova G.D.  Estimating the accuracy of optical text recognition tools. Case study of text retrieval from engineering documentation

The paper discusses the applicability of optical text recognition tools for text retrieval from engineering documentation. The features of text representation in engineering documentation are described. Accuracy metrics for existing optical text recognition tools are determined. The accuracy of selected tools is estimated in the case of text fragments retrieval from the engineering documentation.

Keywords: information processing, text retrieval, optical character recognition, engineering documentation, guidance materials.

Verevkin A.P., Murtazin T.M.  System engineering of decision-making in process control and diagnosis tasks

The development of automatic and automated control systems, as well as equipment safety and health monitoring, is based on both instrument readings and model outputs. Aligning the information from these heterogeneous sources for making justified decisions on control and diagnosis is a key challenge. The paper discusses how the level of formalization in this area can be improved and decision-making methods agreed with the information sources based on the control objectives and feasible implementation variants. At the stage of information subsystem development, the amount and quality of both kinds of information are determined, approaches to and criteria for information quality assessment for control and condition monitoring applications are proposed. The variants of decision-making module design are related with the quality of original information. Functional agreement of both subsystems can be ensured by iterative correction and alignment of the characteristics of the information and decision-making subsystems in terms of Boolean and fuzzy logics. The paper shows that the efficiency of decision-making systems is basically determined by the information quality as a whole and the object modeling techniques in particular, as well as by the decision-making framework and models.

Keywords: decision formation, model, automatic control, condition diagnosis, degree of belief.

Fomin A.V.  Developing a functional diagram of cross-loop interactions in heating furnaces with the example of metal heating furnaces of A.A. Ugarov Oskol electric steelworks

The paper sets the problem and substantiates the need for developing a functional diagram of cross-loop interactions in metallurgical heating furnaces. Datasets from a real-life furnace for metal heating prior to rolling are analyzed. A full-scale experiment undertaken for investigating cross-loop interactions is described. A functional diagram of cross-loop interactions is developed and presented.

Keywords: PI controller, heating furnace, cross-loop interactions, functional diagram.

Kravchenko V.N.  New Pick-to-Light solutions for optimization and automation of material selection and order picking systems

The paper showcases the advantages of electronic technology, which simplifies, accelerates and improves the accuracy of material selection and order picking processes at Pick-to-Light warehouses and logistics centers. It presents the KTSH range of tools for Pick-to-Light solutions developed by KT Sensors in cooperation with a major Chinese vendor.

Keywords: Pick-to-Light systems, sorting, order picking, warehouse.

Vinogradov A.N.  Application of wireless and wired data communication channels in temperature and humidity monitoring systems of a cold storage

An automated information system for product storage monitoring in freezers of low-temperature warehouses is presented. The system was implemented in the refrigeration complex of Vladivostok seaport. In its various control loops, either wireless or wired data communication channels are employed. The paper compares these two technologies of data communication from field sensors to controllers.

Keywords: temperature and humidity monitoring, LoRaWAN wireless technology, cold storage.

Tsvetkov V.V.  Application of massive engineering for implementing pipeline transport scheduling projects

The paper shows the efficiency of massive engineering application in the design of supervisory control systems for crude oil transmission pipelines. It discusses real-life solutions for database configuring, screen schematics development, testing and commissioning with the cases study from Transneft subsidiary.

Keywords: massive engineering, supervisory control systems, crude oil transmission pipelines, virtualization.

Trufakin D.V. How to achieve stable effects in the digitalization of MRO?