An entire wellsite, running in software. Indistinguishable from the real thing.
Industrial automation has always been gated by access to physical equipment, a flow computer, a compressor panel, a plunger-lift controller, each costing thousands and living on a remote pad. RetroSimulation is a high-fidelity digital twin of that equipment. Drop it on a server and, to any client on the network, it is the real device. Watch one running, live, below.
RetroSimulationIndustrial Digital Twin
Connecting…Illustrative
185Live tags
4Field devices
4Protocols
100msTick rate
LIVE MODEL
Inlet Pressure350 psi
Tank Level61.4 %
Chemical Rate166.2 L/day
Chemical Cost Today1.91 $
Live tags28
Inlet Pressure350 psi
Tank Level61.4 %
Chemical Rate166 L/day
Chemical Cost Today1.91 $
Showing illustrative values. The full live stream activates when the dashboard read key is configured.
Event LogIllustrative
·INFOAll engines nominal, parameters within limits
·STATECompressor state changed to RUNNING
·ALARMHigh discharge temperature, stage 3
·ALARM_CLRDischarge temperature cleared
·INFOScenario applied: normal operations
One live model, served at the same instant over four industrial protocols
ROC PlusFB107 native · :4000350
Modbus TCP6 slave ports · :5020-25350
MQTTRetroRelay JSON350
Sparkplug Bcloud egress · native350
Write back into the twinEvery read channel is also a write channel. Move the setpoint and the simulated process responds, exactly as a real controller writing over Modbus or ROC+ would.
115 mL/min
The twin-online state and uptime are a genuine live signal from simulation.h2innovations.ca. The tag stream and telemetry show real valueswhen a read-only dashboard credential is configured; otherwise they run a faithful local physics model, labelled Illustrative. Nothing is written to the production twin from here.
The twin is deployed and online right now. One live model of the equipment, served at the same instant over four industrial protocols. Pick a device, watch the process move, and write a setpoint back into it.
See it running
Four wellsites, four live operator screens
Each engine drives a full HMI, the same kind of screen a control room runs, rendered from the live model. These are real captures of the deployed twin, not mockups.
Gas Compression StationA four-stage Ariel JGK-4 recip on a Waukesha driver, drawn as a live process graphic with per-stage pressures and temperatures and an alarm log.
Plunger LiftA downhole well and its ALiEn2 controller, with a three-phase separator, gas metering, and the full afterflow cycle running live.
Chemical InjectionA ROC800-fed methanol skid with tank level, injection control, running cost, and live hydrate-risk logic, alarms and all.
Tune it, break it, learn it
The PID trainer runs a real control loop with a live response trend. Bump the setpoint, inject a disturbance, mistune the gains, and watch overshoot, windup, and limit cycles happen in real time.
The status quo
Why field software is hard to build
Every industrial application needs a real device to develop against. When the device is a remote wellsite, the whole project waits on it, and mocking it convincingly is harder than it looks.
01No hardware, no testA logic engine, a register map, an alarm rule, none of it can be proven without a real device feeding it realistic, physically-consistent data.
02A demo needs a wellsiteYou cannot carry a compressor station into a sales meeting. The product stays abstract until the customer can watch it move.
03Iteration waits for a site visitA rule change means a drive to a remote pad to confirm it. Hours of work gated behind a day on the road.
04Mock data fools no oneA field engineer spots a flat sine wave instantly. A hydrate-risk rule only fires when pressure and temperature fall together, and a function generator cannot reproduce that.
How it works
Real physics, real protocols, one source of truth
RetroSimulation runs genuine process physics for real field equipment, then serves it over the exact protocols the hardware speaks, all from one live model that cannot drift out of sync with itself.
One model, one truth, many facesOne live model of the equipment is the single source of truth. Every protocol view reads from it, so the Modbus view, the ROC+ view, and the cloud view can never disagree. The data is always consistent, by design.
It speaks the protocols, it does not fake themA simulated flow computer answers a real SCADA master's native ROC Plus polls, the way the field hardware does. Independent, third-party protocol clients read it correctly. It is a real device on the wire, not a mock.
From the device to the cloud, at onceThe same live data leaves over the native field protocols a controller expects and, simultaneously, over the modern cloud standard a SCADA platform expects. One twin, every audience.
A twin you can write toEvery read channel is also a write channel. A controller setting a pump rate over Modbus or ROC+ writes back into the live process and watches it respond, exactly as it would against real iron.
Drawn to spec
Real instruments, rebuilt as vector art
Every device on the screens is a hand-built, to-spec rendering of the real equipment, the same flow computers, compressors, controllers, and transmitters a field tech would recognize on the pad. They scale to any screen without going soft.
It does not pretend to be a device. It behaves like one.
In plain terms
Pick a piece of equipment and RetroSimulation runs its real behaviour, pressures, temperatures, flows, vibration, a tank that empties, a sensor that drifts between calibrations, a well that declines as it ages. Anything that can read the real device can read this one the same way, and what it reads holds up to a field engineer's eye.
The engineering
One live model holds the truth, and every protocol view reads from it. It answers native ROC Plus, six Modbus TCP devices, MQTT, and a modern Sparkplug B cloud feed, all at the same time. The behaviour is the real thing, genuine gas-flow and compressibility physics and a real control loop, and the result is proven by independent, third-party protocol clients, not by its own tests.
Digital twinNative protocol emissionROC PlusModbus TCPMQTTSparkplug BField-faithful physicsIndependently verified
Where it fits
The device side of the whole ecosystem
RetroSimulation stands exactly where a real field device would and answers polls, the mirror image of the field app that asks. It is the development backend for the edge controller, the deterministic demo backend for the field app, and it speaks the protocols our internal tooling produces, the bench stand-in for the wireless device that ships to the field.
Protocols from our internal tooling
Field physics + scenarios
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The twinRetroSimulationOne live model, served as native device protocols and as a modern cloud standard, at the same time.
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RetroRelay develops against it. RetroConnect demos against it. No wellsite required.
Where it is
Deployed, multi-protocol, and verified
The four engines, the protocol surfaces, the cloud egress, and the data-flow HMI all run as a live service. It began as the test bed that makes the edge controller shippable, and became a way to put an entire wellsite, and the training to run one, on a laptop.
4 engines
chemical injection, gas compression, plunger lift, and a PID trainer
4 protocols
native ROC Plus, Modbus TCP, MQTT, and Sparkplug B, emitted at once
36 scenarios
hot-switchable field conditions across the four engines
Independently verified
read correctly by third-party reference protocol clients
ShippedField-device twinFour engines with real process behaviour and trustworthy data-quality signals, served over six Modbus TCP devices and MQTT, with a library of field conditions you can switch on the fly.
ShippedNative ROC Plus + cloud egressA simulated flow computer answering native ROC Plus polls the way the field hardware does, plus a modern Sparkplug B cloud feed publishing every device, all at once.
ActiveConformance + diagnosticsA harness that proves the twin with independent reference clients, a coded diagnostics engine that scores health and suggests fixes, and HMI and physics polish.
PlannedWider protocol library + soakAdditional ROC+ configuration opcodes, DNP3 and Telebus as second protocols off the same template, and a long-haul soak and metrics pass toward a hardened release.
A whole wellsite, faithful enough to fool the people who run them, served over the exact protocols the industry speaks, from one server.
