What is a triconex system?
What is the Triconex system?
Schneider Electric produced the Triconex system, which is one of the best industrial safety and critical control systems. It is commonly utilized in high-risk fields like oil and gas, petrochemicals, power generation, and others where system safety and reliability are very important. The system uses Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) technology, which makes sure that it keeps working without errors even if some parts fail. This supports Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL 3) applications.
Jon Wimer started Triconex in California in 1983. Its TMR-based architecture changed the way safety is handled in factories. The system has three separate processors that do the identical tasks at the same time, and a “voting” system makes sure that only the right results are used. This architecture is very fault-tolerant and available, which means that the plant can run without any problems.
The Triconex system architecture has core processor modules, communication modules, backup power sources, I/O modules (both analog and digital), and an engineering workstation that uses TriStation 1131 software to set up and diagnose the system. You can write programs in Ladder Logic, Function Block, or Structured Text (IEC 61131-3). The system also lets you record a Sequence of Events (SOE) and do diagnostic monitoring, which makes it easier to find problems and see what’s going on.
There are more than 11,500 installations of Triconex solutions around the world, which makes them a standard for safety instrumented systems (SIS). Even though the system was reliable, it got a lot of attention in 2017 when the Triton malware attacked its controls. This showed how important cybersecurity is becoming in industrial automation.