Abstract: This paper introduces the industrial control configuration software MCGS and its application in the distributed monitoring system of air compressor units in coal mines. The engineering background, hardware composition, control method, configuration process, and functions of the system are described. Practice has proven that the system has advantages such as user-friendly interface, high degree of automation, reliable monitoring, and strong scalability, and has strong reference value for the development of other similar projects. Keywords: Configuration software; MCGS; Air compressor; Computer monitoring 1. Introduction With the continuous progress and development of microcomputer technology and automatic control technology, computer automatic detection and control technology has been introduced into many fields. In coal mines, and even in many enterprises with pneumatic machinery, air compressors are indispensable due to the nature of their work. Modern coal mines require air compressor units to have a high level of automation. The adoption of microcomputer control is an inevitable trend in the development of air compressors. It can reduce the labor intensity of operators and play a guaranteeing and promoting role in the reliable and safe operation of air compressors. According to the relevant requirements of the "Coal Mine Safety Regulations," air compressors must have four protection devices (i.e., overpressure, overtemperature, oil shortage, and water shortage protection). Coal mines urgently need a complete set of relatively complete and sensitive reliable detection and protection devices. Based on thorough research, we signed a research contract with a key state-owned coal mine under the Xuzhou Mining Group for the "Distributed Monitoring System for Air Compressor Units" project. The coal mine's air compressor room has five reciprocating air compressors and one Ingersoll Rand screw compressor. The air compressor operating parameters that need to be monitored include temperature, pressure, flow rate, and power supply parameters. Low-pressure frequency conversion control was also implemented for the Ingersoll Rand air compressor. 2. System Hardware Composition The system mainly consists of a host computer, printer, Mitsubishi PLC, sensors/transmitters, Yuguang intelligent instruments, solenoid valves, and multi-core cables. Following the air compressor control process requirements, the PLC completes individual manual control of each air compressor and automatic grouping control of the entire air compressor unit. Sensors and transmitters convert analog quantities such as pressure, temperature, flow rate, and power supply parameters of the air compressor into 4-20mA standard signals and send them to the Yuguang intelligent instrument. The Yuguang intelligent instrument mainly completes the real-time display and alarm of multiple measurement signals, and simultaneously sends the measurement signals to the host computer through the RS485 communication module. The host computer is responsible for the configuration interface display of the air compressor unit's distributed monitoring system, including the air compressor operation animation interface, real-time data, historical data, status curves, alarm display, parameter settings, fault analysis and diagnosis, etc. The system hardware structure diagram is shown in Figure 1. [align=center] Figure 1 System Hardware Structure Diagram[/align] 3. System Configuration Design and Function Implementation Configuration software is a new type of software development technology that has emerged in the field of industrial automation in recent years. It has the advantages of simple secondary development, short development cycle, strong versatility, and high reliability. In the development of the monitoring software for this project, we selected the MCGS5.5 configuration software from Beijing Kunlun Tongtai Company, which is widely used in China. MCGS, a fully Chinese industrial control configuration software, is a configuration software system based on Microsoft Windows 98/Me/NT/2000 operating system. It can be used to quickly construct and generate upper computer monitoring systems. It provides users with a complete solution and development platform for solving practical engineering problems, from device drivers, data acquisition to data processing, alarm processing, process control, animation display, and report output. The MCGS software system includes two parts: configuration environment and runtime environment. The configuration environment is equivalent to a complete set of tool software to help users design and construct their own application systems; the runtime environment runs according to the configuration project constructed in the configuration environment in the way specified by the user and performs various processing to complete the user's configuration design goals and functions. 3.1 System Configuration The project established by the MCGS configuration software consists of five parts: main control window, device window, user window, real-time database, and running strategy. Each part is configured separately to complete different tasks and has different characteristics. (1) Configuration of the main control window The main control window is the parent window and main frame of the application system. The system is scheduled and managed by defining and setting the system menu and system parameters, reflecting the overall overview of the application project. (2) User window configuration is mainly used to set the human-machine interface in the project. The monitoring screen in the user window consists of two parts: static screen and dynamic screen. The user window configured in this project includes the main control interface, the sub-interface of each air compressor, alarm display, fault diagnosis, parameter setting, curve graph, data printing, remote control, etc. The main control interface of the air compressor unit distributed monitoring system is shown in Figure 2. [align=center] Figure 2 System main control interface[/align] (3) Real-time database configuration The real-time database is the core of MCGS. All parts of the project exchange data in the real-time database as a common area to realize the coordinated action of each part. According to the actual needs of the system design, this project defines and sets three types of data objects: numerical type, switch type, and group object, totaling about 200 points. (4) Equipment component configuration The equipment window is the working environment for connecting and driving external equipment. The computer serial port is the most commonly used communication interface when the computer communicates with other devices. One serial port can be connected to multiple communication devices. In order to adapt to the various operation modes of the computer serial port, the MCGS configuration software adopts the processing mechanism of connecting multiple communication sub-devices under the serial communication parent device. In the distributed monitoring system of the air compressor unit, the host computer monitoring uses Lenovo commercial computer, a well-known domestic brand. Due to the large number of external communication devices, in order to improve the communication speed and reliability, the host computer provides 4 serial ports to communicate with the field PLC and intelligent instruments. Several points to note when configuring the equipment window in this project: First, the port address jumper on the field intelligent device must be consistent with the module address setting in the corresponding device component attribute; Second, the initial working state of all communication sub-device components (Yuguang_AI708M, Mitsubishi FX_485, etc.) is set to stop, so that the corresponding equipment can be started and stopped by a cyclic strategy according to the actual operation of the air compressor in the operating environment; Third, in the channel connection attribute page, the cycle of all unused channels is set to 0. The latter two processing schemes are to improve the real-time communication speed and reliability of the system's operational equipment. (5) Operation strategy configuration This window mainly completes the control of the project operation process. According to the actual system control algorithm and the specific process and operation processing to be completed, the "cyclic strategy", "user strategy" and "alarm strategy" are configured and set in the MCGS "operation strategy" window respectively. For example, the configuration of the loop strategy is to use the script program component in the strategy toolbox, and use the Basic language command to write the processing program such as equipment start-up and shutdown, alarm limit online setting, power-on self-test, motor rotor rotation animation, etc., and set the policy line condition attributes at the same time; the alarm strategy is used to realize the voice prompts for different types of alarms (such as temperature, pressure, excitation current, water shortage, etc.). The Chinese pronunciation in the voice file is generated by the "InterPhonic CN Voice Synthesis System" of iFlytek Information Technology Co., Ltd., and the alarm effect is like the voice of a real person; the user strategy mainly uses the disk data extraction and Excel report output components to generate various reports and fault diagnosis information for operators to query, print and analyze. 3.2 Implementation of main functions The MCGS operating environment is an independent operating system. It performs various processing according to the user-specified method in the configuration environment to complete the user configuration design goals and functions. (1) The monitoring system sets different usage permissions according to different operators, which effectively ensures the security of system operation. (2) Real-time monitoring and display of system parameters: This system uses MCGS configuration software to realize real-time monitoring of all parameters of the air compressor operation, so that the current flow rate, power supply parameters, monitored temperature, monitored pressure, etc. of each air compressor are displayed intuitively and dynamically on the same screen, which facilitates production monitoring and realizes real-time management of the production process and system visualization. (3) Parameter over-limit alarm and fault diagnosis: This project sets over-limit alarms for parameters such as main power supply current, excitation current, first-stage cylinder exhaust temperature, second-stage cylinder exhaust temperature, oil temperature, air receiver temperature, cooling water temperature, first-stage cylinder pressure, second-stage cylinder pressure, oil pressure, and water shortage in the air compressor system. Once the parameter value exceeds the limit during operation, the configuration software can realize classified voice alarm and dynamic screen prompt, and can store the alarm information in the alarm information database for post-event statistical analysis. For each parameter with alarm attributes, the alarm cause analysis is given during configuration. Therefore, the alarm information database can be used to generate fault expert diagnosis information for reference by on-site personnel during maintenance. According to the regulations, the alarm limits of different parameters of the air compressor system vary with the season. To adapt to this situation, the alarm limits are set online using a cyclic strategy. (4) Data processing: The historical reports and historical curves set by the MCGS configuration software are used to give the operating status and trend of the key parameters of the air compressor at any time in history in the form of charts or curves, so that the on-site operators can query and analyze them. Figure 3 shows the historical curves of temperature and pressure during a certain period of operation of the No. 5 air compressor. The shift reports, daily reports and monthly reports made by the data extraction and Excel report output components can be printed and submitted regularly, overcoming the tediousness and randomness of manual data recording in the past. [align=center] Figure 3 Historical curve[/align] (5) Remote control: The start-up, shutdown and status monitoring of the air compressor are implemented by the lower computer PLC programming. By switching the conversion switch on the field control cabinet, the air compressor can work in two modes: single manual and automatic group operation control. Through the configuration of the equipment components, the remote manual and automatic group operation control of the air compressor unit can be easily realized on the upper computer. 4. Conclusion The MCGS configuration software, with its superior features, has been successfully applied in the distributed monitoring system of air compressor units. It realizes functions such as real-time data browsing, historical data trend display, monitoring parameter alarm prompts, and remote start/stop control of air compressors, meeting all the requirements of the technical contract. Compared with the original air compressor system, this monitoring system has advantages such as high automation, sensitive parameter monitoring, and high operational reliability. It has strong reference value for the microcomputer control transformation of air compressors in modern mining enterprises and is worthy of promotion and application. The innovation of this paper is: starting from the actual monitoring needs of coal mine air compressor systems, it details the development process and implemented functions of the upper-level computer monitoring software for air compressor units. Engineering operation practice shows that the system is reliable, easy to operate, and highly automated. References [1] MCGS User Guide. Beijing: Beijing Kunlun Tongtai Automation Software Technology Co., Ltd., 2005 [2] Ma Bingzhi, et al. Application of configuration software MCGS in boiler liquid level control [J]. Control Engineering, 2004, 11(1): 84-86 [3] Xiao Jinqiu, et al. Application of industrial control configuration software MCGS in blended oil production system [J]. Microcomputer Information, 2006, 22(2): 94-96