FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

The ASE2000 Test Set is a full-featured protocol test unit.  It provides the user with a powerful and flexible tool for diagnosing communication problems and testing and maintaining RTU and IED equipment.

• USER INTERFACE - The user interface is a very user friendly windows based application.  Dialog boxes allow the user to define test session specific information and user preference information. For quick-start operation, the supplied default values for most test operations are sufficient. For tests that require special conditions, a set of intuitive and easy to use set-up screens is provided. The sessions can be saved for later use. Many users develop a library of frequently used test scenarios with this feature thereby eliminating repetitive set-up for future test sessions.
• DISPLAY OPTIONS - Display screens provide dynamic data display during monitoring and simulation mode test sessions. Users are not limited to a single display format for message data. A number of data display options are available.  In addition, message data can be displayed in Interpretive Mode which identifies, in English, the various message elements and their values, Raw Data Mode which displays only the numeric message data, or a combination to the two. Many other display options such as displaying analog data scaled in a ± 5Volt range, percentage of full scale, and selection of numbering base (decimal, hexadecimal, octal, and binary) are also available.

   

• MODES OF OPERATION - The test set has three modes of operation, Master Simulation, RTU Simulation, and Line Monitor.

Master Simulation Mode - provides the capability to issue data scan requests and supervisory control commands to one or more RTUs on a communication line. The set-up screens for this mode allow the user to define a test scenario that identifies which device(s) to communicate with, which commands to issue for each device, frequency of commands, screen format and display format of message data.

RTU Simulation Mode - allows the user to configure the test set as one or more RTUs that will respond to data scan requests and supervisory control commands with the proper response. Dialog boxes allow the user to specify point types, number of points, and point ordering that will result in the proper data message structure. Point modeling can also be enabled to provide data value changes on successive data scans.

Line Monitoring Mode - is used to monitor the communication between a master station and terminal devices (RTU / IED) on a communication line. Message data for both directions is shown and can be logged if desired.