Abstract: Modern field control systems not only pursue reliability and stability, but more importantly, the optimal combination of reliability, stability, and economy. The WinCon8000 industrial control equipment, with its integrated IPC and PLC capabilities and WinCE-based architecture, offers a significantly more competitive price-performance ratio than conventional PLC equipment, giving control system architectures new characteristics. This paper details the hardware and software design of the WinCon8000 in a specific application of a fire monitoring system for an oil depot, and analyzes its economic efficiency. Practice has proven that the system design meets the design requirements, and the WinCE-based WinCon8000 controller will play a crucial role in Web-based field-level control, with its application areas becoming increasingly widespread. Keywords: WinCE Based WinCon8000 Controller Security System Design 1. Project Requirements Currently, frequent explosions and fires in China have caused incalculable losses to the nation, collectives, and individuals. Most of these incidents are due to inadequate security measures or insufficient attention to security monitoring systems. Therefore, the state is increasingly emphasizing fire safety monitoring in flammable and explosive locations, with increasingly stringent requirements. This is especially true for large petrochemical tank depots (hereinafter referred to as oil depots) in central cities, where security monitoring is mandated and must be rectified to ensure absolute safety. Consequently, automated security monitoring and information management systems for oil depots are gaining increasing importance. To adapt to this trend, and based on the specific fire hazards and flammable liquid leakage monitoring needs of oil depots, a network-based oil depot monitoring and management system based on ICPDAS (Hongge Technology) and WinCon8000 was developed. This system comprises monitoring of tank area temperature, smoke visibility, etc., security control, and an information management system, significantly improving the security management level of oil depots. The system monitors and alarms in real time for temperature, smoke visibility, and other parameters in four tank areas. It can communicate with a host computer to display real-time security information for the tank areas and provides functions such as audible and visual alarms, sounders, fire telephones, and fire broadcasts. 2. System Architecture 2.1 System Composition The fire protection equipment in the oil depot tank area mainly includes security monitoring equipment, fire alarm devices, fire extinguishing equipment, and safety operation equipment. Security monitoring equipment primarily monitors the temperature and smoke visibility of the oil depot in real time. Fire alarm devices are used to generate timely alarms when safety parameters are abnormal or when a fire occurs. The main equipment includes alarm bells, hydraulic alarm bells, and emergency broadcasts. Fire extinguishing equipment is used to effectively control the fire in its early stages and extinguish initial fires promptly. The main equipment includes fire monitors, foam pumps, automatic sprinkler pumps, and high-pressure water guns. Safety operation equipment is used to control and operate material pipelines and various control valves, such as pressure valves and water pumps, when safety parameters are abnormal. The requirements for linkage control of various fire-fighting equipment in petrochemical tank areas differ. Some equipment, such as alarm bells, requires direct activation upon anomaly; others require delayed activation after anomaly, such as fire pumps which need to start after fire confirmation; and still others require a status signal to the system after activation, such as foam pumps. The main equipment in petrochemical tank areas with linkage requirements includes fire pumps, foam pumps, safety valves, audible and visual alarms, sounders, fire telephones, and fire broadcast systems. These linkages are primarily implemented by the WinCon8000 local control unit. Considering the small number, high importance, and dispersed layout of fire pumps and foam pumps in petrochemical tank areas, dedicated lines or a combination of dedicated lines and bus control are mostly used for direct control. A DC24V standard drive signal is directly sent to the fire equipment distribution box to ensure high reliability of these devices' operation. The overall system architecture diagram is shown in Figure 1. [align=center]Figure 1: Architecture diagram of the oil depot fire protection system based on WinCon8000[/align] 2.2 Introduction to the main local controller WinCon8000 WinCon-8000 is a leading application platform for industrial control, process control, and embedded control, recently developed by ICPDAS (ICP) to adapt to the transition of PC operating systems from DOS to Windows. It features an embedded hardware core, an Intel Strong ARM CPU, and a Windows CE.NET 4.1 operating system. Due to its embedded Windows CE.NET operating system, compared to conventional Windows operating systems, it has hard real-time capabilities, a smaller kernel, fast boot, deterministic control through deep interrupt handling, and low cost. Using Windows CE.NET 4.1 on WinCon-8000 enables it to run PC-based control software such as Visual Basic.NET, Visual C#, Embedded Visual C++, and some PC-based SCADA software, Soft PLCs, etc. In addition, the WinCon-8000 features a VGA interface, allowing users to directly connect to ordinary LCD monitors without needing to connect to an expensive HMI or industrial PC. Compared to conventional industrial PCs or PLC systems, the WinCon-8000 is indeed a low-cost, high-performance option. 2.3 Local Control Unit Based on WinCon8000 The main task of the local control unit based on WinCon8000 is to monitor parameters such as temperature, smoke visibility, etc., around the large oil storage tanks in the oil depot in real time. Simultaneously, in the event of an anomaly, it should be able to promptly contact the oil depot monitoring center, display warning parameters on the control panel, and activate fire-fighting equipment in a timely manner. Since the oil depot base has multiple large oil tanks, the controller must have remote communication capabilities. Currently, TCP/IP-based control systems are increasingly valued and widely used due to their versatility and seamless integration with the company's OA system. Therefore, without sacrificing advancement, the main controller of this system must have a TCP/IP interface. This is one of the reasons for choosing WinCon8000. 2.3.1 Main Controller Based on the above requirements for the local control unit, ICP DARPA's WinCon8000 is the best choice. The WinCon8000 series offers several models. Based on the requirements of this system, the WinCon-8331-G compact embedded control system is selected. Its main features are as follows: • Intel Strong ARM CPU, 206MHz, providing strong real-time data processing capabilities; • SDRAM: 64M, Flash Memory: 32M, EEPROM: 16K; • Built-in watchdog timer and real-time clock enhance system real-time performance; • Built-in 10BaseT, NE2000 compliant, enabling remote access and facilitating networked control system configuration; • One CF slot: for inserting a CF memory card, ensuring the program doesn't crash or data is lost upon system restart after power failure; • Three I/O expansion slots provide expansion capabilities. The WinCon8000 comes pre-installed with Windows CE.NET, making it very easy to develop control applications using Microsoft Embedded Visual C++, Visual Basic .NET, or Visual C#. Because Windows CE.NET is a strong real-time system, it supports handling different priority levels and providing deterministic control at each level, just like a PLC. Furthermore, Windows CE.NET offers a number of advantages over traditional PLC systems, including network communication, graphical user interface, information processing, large-capacity storage management, support for standard PC interfaces, and ease of programming. The combination of Windows CE.NET and the strong real-time characteristics of a PLC creates a powerful control solution. The WinCon-8000 series is a diskless real-time control platform, a powerful integration of traditional PLC and Windows PC. 2.3.2 Analog Signal Input Module The I/O input/output module based on the WinCon8000 controller can be directly connected to the I/O module based on the I-8000 controller. According to system requirements, the I-8017H analog signal acquisition module is selected for acquiring signals such as temperature, smoke, and visibility. Its characteristics are: • ◇ Number of analog input channels: 8 Channels • ◇ Resolution: 14 bits • ◇ Input type: Differential • ◇ Opto-isolation: 3000VDC According to the requirements of the control system, each local unit needs to acquire 12 analog signals. Therefore, two I-8017H analog signal acquisition modules are required. The acquisition channel allocation is shown in Table 1. [align=center]Table 1: Channel Configuration of I-8017H[/align] 2.3.3 Switch Output Module The switch output module based on the WinCon8000 controller is mainly used to control or start fire pumps, foam pumps, safety valves, audible and visual alarms, sounders, fire telephones and fire broadcasts, etc. Due to the limitation of the output capability of WinCon8000 itself, its output needs to be amplified by different secondary relays according to different fire equipment. Based on the requirements, the I-8042 digital input module is selected, with the following characteristics: • Number of digital input channels: 16 Channels • Number of digital output channels: 16 Channels • 3750V isolation when externally powered • Open collector output: 125mA/channel When the I-8017H detects smoke visibility or ambient temperature exceeding a certain threshold, the I-8042 will automatically activate and control the fire-fighting facilities, achieving continuous acquisition, processing, and status analysis of on-site safety and fire parameters, timely prediction of accidents and implementation of handling measures, effective activation of on-site fire-fighting equipment, and implementation of fire extinguishing operations. 3 Monitoring System Software Design According to the system integration method, the application software of the petrochemical tank area fire safety monitoring system adopts modular programming, mainly including the system main control module, accident handling module, information communication module, fire management module, etc., with the following functions: 1) System main control module. The main functions of the monitoring system are as follows: 1) Data acquisition and processing, alarm judgment and linkage control output, automatic and manual control mode switching, and system management; 2) Accident handling module. Based on monitoring data, it performs accident status analysis and prediction of the safety status of the monitored area, conducts on-site safety operation control and emergency response, and implements disaster relief plans; 3) Information and communication module. It mainly completes communication protocol management, communication control, and remote networking; the tank area security monitoring system mainly relies on various detectors to collect on-site data and send it to the monitoring host. Through data analysis, processing and prediction of various parameters, it generates alarm and fire-fighting equipment linkage control signals, and stores monitoring data and various signals in the system database. It also sends the data to the upper-level management center through remote transmission, realizing functions such as data classification storage, data sharing, information query and business management; 4) Fire management module. It mainly completes system operation management, equipment condition management, fire prevention management and data storage. According to the above module division, the upper computer monitoring system application software can use Windows programming language, object-oriented design of application interface and database, fully support visual programming, and provide centralized data management functions. 3.1 Programming of the Field-Level WinCon8000 Since the WinCon8000 embeds the WinCE operating system, and WinCE is a multi-tasking hard real-time system, its kernel mode provides users with API functions similar to CeSetThreadPriority(), achieving a control accuracy of 1ms, which is sufficient to meet the application requirements of this control system. The programming software used is Visual Basic.NET. Besides retaining the basic syntax of VB, VB.NET also adds many new features, such as multi-threading, Internet Web, data flow standardization, etc. WinCon-8000 is a dedicated device for automatic control and also a WinCE Embedded device. Therefore, from a programming perspective, since ICP DAY provides the development toolkit with WinCon.Dll, the control signal input and output are very simple. VB.NET has two features that are more advantageous for designing automatic control systems. The development flow of the control program for the field unit of WinCon8000 based on Visual Basic.NET is shown in Figure 2. [align=center]Figure 2: Development Flow of the Control Program for the Local Unit of WinCon8000 Based on Visual Basic.NET[/align] 3.2 Control Room Host Computer Programming Since WinCon-8000 provides multiple data communication methods such as OPC, it can exchange I/O signal values ​​with external systems. OPC Server communication is one of the communication standards in the industrial control industry, so system integration is also standardized. Therefore, the host computer uses the Visual C++ programming environment under the Windows 2000 Professional operating system, and with the OPC Server communication method provided by ICP DAY, it is easy to connect four field WinCon8000 controllers into an NCS (Network Control System). Under Visual C++, programmers can even achieve networking with them without understanding the specific meaning and characteristics of WinCon8000. OPC is the application of Microsoft's object linking and embedded OLE/COM technology in process control, providing a standard data access mechanism for the industrial control field. OPC adopts a client/server structure and provides two interface schemes, namely the COM interface and the OLE automation interface. The COM interface is highly efficient, allowing customers to maximize the performance of the OPC server; this is a common solution for customers using C++. The OLE automation interface enables interpreted languages ​​and macro languages ​​to access the OPC server. During program design, the following commands can be used to obtain WinCon8000 data values: • HRESULT Read(dwCount, phServer, dwTransactionID, pdwCancelID, ppErrors,) asynchronously reads the value of an OPCItem(s) within an OPCGroup. The value is returned as a callback after the hardware read operation is complete. • HRESULT SetState(pRequestedUpdateRate, pRevisedUpdateRate, pActive, pTimeBias, pPercentDeadband, pLCID, phClientGroup) sets the state information of the OPCGroup. • HRESULT Write(dwCount, phServer, pItemValues, dwTransactionID, pdwCancelID, ppErrors) asynchronously writes the value to an OPCItem(s) within an OPCGroup. • HRESULT Cancel2(dwCancelID) cancels the previous asynchronous read/write operation. • HRESULT Refresh2(dwSource, dwTransactionID, pdwCancelID) Updates the value of OPCItem(s) within the OPCGroup; • HRESULT SetEnable(bEnable) Sets the OPCGroup to Enable; • HRESULT GetEnable(pbEnable) Returns whether the OPCGroup is Enabled; The real-time monitoring interface in the control room is shown in Figure 3. [align=center]Figure 3: Real-time monitoring interface in the central control room[/align] 4. Conclusion Based on the current analysis of the technical level of security monitoring systems in petrochemical tank areas, the security monitoring system in this petrochemical tank area meets the design requirements of fire safety monitoring systems in terms of the accuracy of safety parameter monitoring, the timeliness of linkage of fixed fire extinguishing devices, the rationality of emergency response measures, system downtime, and system operating costs. Due to the advanced hardware architecture of the WinCon8000 and the WinCE-based solution provided by ICP DAY, the security monitoring system features short startup time, easy integration, and high reliability. As a controller that integrates the advantages of IPC and PLC and embeds the WinCE operating system, the WinCon8000 controller, with its standard information architecture, ability to drive I/O signals, standardization, openness, interoperability, and portability, will play a crucial role in Web-based field-level control, and its application areas will become increasingly widespread.