RSP gets radar-based Oven Identification, Interlocking System

Rourkela: A modern radar-based Oven Identification and Machine Interlocking System has been installed at the Coke Ovens Battery-5 of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of the Maharatna Company SAIL.

Set up at an expenditure of Rs 6.93 crore, this is a first-of-its-kind system in India. The system was inaugurated by RSP's CEO G S Prasad on January 24, RSP sources said today.

This system will be useful in identification of ovens and carrying out pushing with proper co-ordination and sequencing between different oven machines with the help of a wireless communication channel.

In addition, it will also provide solution for monitoring and database management of different operating parameters. The SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) System provided with it is a landmark in itself which will continuously track position of oven machines, coking progress in chambers etc and transfer on real time basis to central station where it is displayed on a big monitor. This system has ushered a new era of automation in Coke-Ovens Battery all across SAIL.

Another significant advantage of this system is that it has got interlocking facility between different machines which will eliminate all possibilities of wrong pushing, thereby further improving safety of employees and equipments.

Earlier, this used to be manually guarded and hence there was a scope for human error.