The most important customer is Rockwell Automation, Research Center Prague, a subsidiary company of the American Rockwell Inc., whose main business concentrates to industrial automation having an indispensable share of the world market in hardware and software means for industrial automation.
Besides many (partially confidential) projects we find tasks like portable database support for automation, secure information transfer protocols and even some US government subcontracts. To quote just one example: ProTyS develops pilot prototypes of highly perspective multi-agent and holonic systems for distributed industrial automation with the communication based on the FIPA international standard.
Through Rockwell Automation, ProTyS, Inc. has also acquired an important project on Water Distribution Network Simulator for the City of Los Angeles
Within the project ProTyS, Inc. is developing a computer model that simulates dynamical behavior of the Water Distribution Network of the City of Los Angeles reflecting the network geometry, parameters of hydraulic components, reservoirs, tanks, valves, pipes and pump stations and external conditions like service zone demand variations. Identification of model parameters is based on historical records of tags related to hydraulic variables, meteorological data and a calendar. The model is primarily used for designing, testing and validating efficient control algorithms for reliable, economical and ecological running of the network. This includes maintaining water demand, emergency storage and minimizing water hammer effects, includes energy savings by avoiding running pumps during peak hours at high cost and increasing component lifetime. The Simulator is also used for fault diagnostics and early warning of control room operators in case of expected problems. The Simulator will also be used as a tool for training plant operators and service personnel.
The next considerable business partner is the Czech company AŽD Praha, s.r.o. that deals with development a manufacturing of interlocking plants in railway transport.
For this customer ProTyS designed, developed and continuously improves a line automatic train blocking system for newly constructed high-speed routes of the Czech Railways. A prototype of this equipment was presented at the International awarded this exhibit.
The construction of the behavioral model and testing of the software component of the whole interlocking plant is considered as a very important activity within this cooperation.
Development of Safety-Critical Solutions for Transportation Systems
One of the most considerable and very perspective ProTyS activity is the design and development of advanced automation systems and algorithms based of fuzzy logic.
Long time experience acquired by solving problems and control tasks of such a type has currently been materialized in the Company genuine product the FuzzyDesigner. The intelligent control division, that is constantly expanding, has developed this software package.
This off-shelf software is expected to serve automation designers to design, implement and tune control algorithms for on-line control, supervision and monitoring of complex systems and processes that are currently handled by experienced human operators.
ProTyS, Inc. has had also many smaller but professionally very interesting orders from many other partners. These are mostly sub-deliveries for larger technology projects. Some recent are:
Telemanipulator for Hot Chambers
Design and implementation of a control system for new generation of eight degrees of freedom high performance manipulators used to handle radioactive material in so called "hot chambers". Highly radioactive environment prevents using standard drives and sensors in the setup. ProTyS designed the drive system including operator interface for telemanipulation and designed and implemented algorithms for PC based real-time control. The partners were SME company JB Praha, s.r.o., manufacturer of the mechanical part, Czech Technical University, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the end user, the Czech Nuclear Research Institute Řež Ltd., Engineering Services Division (www.ujv.cz).
Underground Gas Storage Facility Monitoring and Early Warning System
Modeling of behavior of high-pressure plugs separating the gas-storing cavern from the access gallery in peak demand storage facility in Příbram-Háje with the aim of predicting potentially dangerous situations. The model learns from long historical records of local seismic activity, underground temperature, gas pressure, water pressure and plug deformations to predict future moves. The prediction system runs in real-time and supports decisions of the storage facility operator to increase reliability of the facility operation. The partners were Roklan-Electronic, s.r.o., Hydroprojekt CZ a.s. and the end user Transgas, a.s., the European natural gas transporter and importer for the Czech Republic.
Tester for a HVAC Control System
Design and implementation of a tester for air-conditioning units used in commercial vehicles, trucks and railway cars. The tester is a PC based device running a program which simulates all the external conditions like ambient and in-car temperature variations, faulty unit components such are valves, compressors, pipes, filters, ventilators and power supplies. The Tester emulates the control algorithm which is supposed to run in firmware of a real HVAC unit controller. Both versions run in parallel in real-time and the responses are compared to validate the particular control algorithm implementation and the control algorithm itself using the hardware-in-the-loop simulation scheme. The Tester supports the development of robust and reliable control algorithms. The partner was the Czech company SPEL, Ltd. and ThermoKing Czech Republic s.r.o..
