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14.4 IEC 60870-5-103 Master

The IEC 60870-5-103 protocol is a companion standard for the informative interface of protection equipment. Standard IEC 60870-5-103 was prepared by IEC Technical Committee 57 (Power system control and associated communications). It is a companion standard for the basic standards in series IEC 60870-5:

Standard IEC 60870-5-103 defines communication between protection equipment and devices of a control system (supervisor or RTU) in a substation.

Standard IEC 60870-5-103 defines a multipoint communication protocol via exchanging information between a control system (supervisor or RTU) and one or more protection devices. The control system is the master and the protection devices are the slaves. Each slave is identified by a unique address between 1 and 254. Address 255 is reserved for broadcast frames.

IEC 60870-5-103 Master

Configuring datapoints

WCC Lite supports IEC 60870-5-103 Master protocol over a serial link (according to EIA RS-485). Its full functionality list can be found in an IEC 60870-5-103 PID Interoperability List.

The IEC 60870-5-103 Master in WCC Lite has to be configured in Excel. This configuration contains two Excel sheets where parameters must be filled in - Devices and Signals.

IEC 60870-­5-­103 parameters for Devices tab
Parameter

Type

Description

Required

Default value

(when not specified)

Range

Min

Max

name

string

User-friendly name for a device

Yes


description

string

Description of a device

No


device_alias

string

Alphanumeric string to identify a device

Yes


enable boolean

Enabling/disabling of a device

No 1 0 1
protocol string

Protocol to be used

Yes
IEC 60870­-5-103 master
device

string

Communication port

Yes


PORT1

PORT2

baudrate integer

Communication speed (bauds/s)

No

9600

600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200

databits integer

Data bit count for communication

No

8

8

stopbits integer

Stop bit count for communication

No

1

1

2

parity

string

Communication parity option

No

none

none, even, odd

flowcontrol

string

Number of requests, before the link is considered lost (device status signals are changed) and reconnect attempt will be issued

No

none

none


link_address integer Destination address when in transmit and source address when broadcasting Yes
0 65535
asdu_address integer Application Service Data Unit address Yes
 0 65535 
time_sync_interval_sec integer

The time frame between Time Synchronization
requests in seconds.

If 0 requests are disabled.

No 60

gi_interval_sec integer The time frame between General Interrogation requests in seconds if 0 requests are disabled Yes 300



scan_rate_ms integer

Polling interval in milliseconds. The time frame between two telegrams from the master.

No 100

timeout_ms integer

Response timeout in milliseconds

No

1000



serial_delay integer Communication device’s serial delay in milliseconds. Time frame in which the master station is not TX’ing after the last RX byte No 50

retry_count integer

Number of retries of failed requests before announcing that the device is in Error state

No 3

retry_delay_ms integer Time before the next retry in milliseconds No 500

reset_command_type string The user can choose the reset command type between FCB and CU. No FCB FCB CU
IEC 60870­-5-­103 master parameters for Signals tab
Parameter

Type

Description

Required

Default value

(when not specified)

Range

Min

Max

signal_name

string

User-friendly signal name

Yes


device_alias

string

Alphanumeric string to identify a device

Yes


signal_alias

string

Unique alphanumeric name of the signal to be Yes used

Yes


source_device_alias

string

device_alias of a source device

For commands


source_signal_alias

string

signal_alias of a source signal

For
commands



enable boolean

Enabling/disabling of an individual signal

No 1 0 1

log

integer

Allow signal to be logged. If the log is 0, the signal will not be logged. If the log is more than 0 signal will be logged

No 0

gi boolean Including/excluding (1 or 0) signals from General Interrogation No 0 0 1
common_address integer Address of a destination device Yes


function integer Function number No 0

info_address integer Information object address Yes


info_number integer Information number Yes


data_type integer ASDU type identifier No 0
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 20
fleeting boolean Mark the signal as a fleeting type (1 or 0). Fleeting signals have to go to DPI::OFF after a defined time No
0 1
normalise_time_ms integer Time in milliseconds between station receiving DPI::ON and automatically switching to DPI::OFF If fleeting is used  100

periodic_update_ms integer Signal value is published periodically according to the value set. No - - -
Device status signals
 

IEC 60870-­5-­103 has an additional signal which can be configured to show communication status. It indicates if the slave device has disconnected from the master (WCC Lite). To configure such signal for IEC 60870-­5-­103 protocol, job_todo and tag_job_todo fields with string values are required. For IEC 60870-­5-­103 master required parameters for the status signal will be: signal_name device_alias, signal_alias, common_address, info_address, info_number, job_todo and tag_job_todo. Job_todo value must be device_status and for tag_job_todo there are 4 variations: communication_status, device_running, device_error, uknown_error. Each signal has 4 possible values and is based on the same logic. If the signal returns the value of 0, it means an unknown error has appeared, 1 – device or protocol connection is on and working properly, 2 – device is off or protocol is disconnected, 3 – error or service is down.

Debugging an IEC 60870-5-103 Master application

If the configuration for IEC 60870-5-103 devices is set up, the handler for the protocol will start automatically. If a configuration is missing parameters or contains errors, the protocol will not start. It is done intentionally to decrease unnecessary memory usage.

If IEC 60870-5-103 does not work properly (e.g. no communication between devices, data is corrupted, etc.), a user can launch a debug session from the command-line interface and find out why the link is not functioning properly or use WCC Utility to do that.

To launch a debugging session, a user should stop the iec103-master process and run the iec103-master command with respective flags.

  • Step 1: Service must be stopped by entering the following command into the WCC Lite:
    /etc/init.d/iec103-­master stop
  • Step 2: After the service is stopped it must be started with the preferred configuration file (JSON
    files found in /etc/ folder) and a debug level 7:  iec103-­master ­-c /etc/iec103-master/iec103-­master.json -­d7
  • Step 3: Once the problem is diagnosed normal operations can be resumed with the following command: /etc/init.d/iec103-­master start
IEC 60870-­5­-103 command line debugging options
-h [ –help ] Display help information 
-V [ –version ] Show version
-d<debug level> Set debugging level 
-c [ –config ] Config path
-r [ –raw ] Show raw telegram data
-f [ –frame ] Show frame data
-R [ –readyfile ] Ready notification file