Central Control Station at Jaenschwalde mineLausitzer Braunkohle AG, Germany (2000

Over a period of two years, ABB Open-Pit Mining installed, in several stages, aprocess control system for the lignite-mining company Lausitzer Braunkohle AG(LAUBAG) at their Jaenschwalde mine.     The third stage, a quality-managementsystem, was commissioned in Apri 2000 after a successful test run.     This completesa control system which covers all large machines and conveyor lines of the mine.    monitoring all processes from waste disposal through coal excavation to transport

An information management system supervises and records all operations.     Thegathered data are made available to LAUBAG for central processing via thecompany's own network.     A diagnostics system provides basic information foroperative and prophylactic maintenance.

All process and video pictures can be displayed on the monitors of the control stationas well as on a large screen measuring 4x1.5 metres.

2.  The Process Control System of the Mine

All technological sections of the mine, i.e.

pre-cutting with 2 machinesthe F60 overburden bridge with 3 bucket-chain excavatorsthe pit and the trench bunker with 7 machines

are connected to the central control station by optical-fibre cable or radio.  Thus acomprehensive picture of all operations is created.  The data of the individual sectionsare stored in a database server and kept for three months.

The central control station has been fully equipped with ABB Advant OCS controlhardware.

A fast and secure transmission protocol couples to the AC450 Advant controllers inthe central station the many decentralised components of other manufacturers thatcontrol the mining machines and conveyor lines. Serial interfaces such as MODBUScould not be used because of the large amount of data to be transmitted. Thestandardised Ethernet infrastructure proved to be the only applicable networksolution.

The Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/P) was chosen fortransmission. That protocol has been used so far mainly in LAN and WAN but isgetting applied more and more for transmission purposes as well.