Investigation into the enhancement of substation automation systems using visual programming technique

This paper is a result of an investigation into visual programming methods and their effective use in substation applications. It particularly concerns with developing a software-based tool for the design of Composed Object Types (COT) as applied to substation automation and control systems. A brief discussion illustrating that substation automation and control systems can be developed using COTs is given. Number of existing textual techniques for the development of substation systems are described. This is followed by a summary of some of the shortcomings of the textual technique and how to overcome them. A comparison between textual and visual programming (or graphical) methods is then given. Three interfacing methods are then described in order to examine and determine which of the two discussed methods is most suitable for the development of substation automation and control systems. These interfaces are based on command driven, menu driven and direct manipulation approaches.