A monitoring and control system based on local network for airfield lighting

We developed a monitoring and control system for airfield lighting. The system can improve the operating efficiency, the reliability, the safety, and the flexibility of airfield lighting. The system is an integrated system, useful for maintenance and failure-diagnosis. Various techniques of hardware, software and network are employed in sending and receiving data on the network system in real-time. The electric powers, the generators and the network itself are also controlled and checked by the system it with redundant configuration. The failures and fire alarms of main equipments are timely monitored.. The data of operational states and of operational commands are stored by the SQL server 7.0 database. A self-checking technique is also used to fulfill the requirement of reliability, safety and maintenances In software design; five independent applications are developed by VC6.0 language for each light-station PC. Also five dependent programs for each monitoring and control PC to complete the communication in network, switch between the two redundant PC and give graphic interface between man and machines. The paper also presents the configuration of the system, gives the design scheme and implementation of the whole system and some solutions of actual problems in the development and application from the programming experience by the authors.