Method and apparatus for controlling sterilization chambers

• US 10,441,673 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2016
• Issued: 10/15/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Konnexis Inc. (Steris PLC)
• Original Assignee: Konnexis Inc. (Steris PLC)
• Inventors: Veselovsky, Peter, Omatsu, Michael, Juqqa, Ahmad, Hijazi, Nader
• Primary Examiner(s): Chorbaji, Monzer R
• Application Number:
  US15/297,816
• Publication Number:
  US 20180104370A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,091 Days
• Field of Search: 422 28, 422 62, 422105, 422119, 700 1, 700 90, 701 1, 701 85, 701127, 340 11, 3404072, 369 1301
• CPC Class Codes: A61L 2/206 Ethylene oxide
• CPC Class Codes: A61L 2/24 Apparatus using programmed or automatic operation
• CPC Class Codes: A61L 2202/14 Means for controlling sterilisation processes, data processing, presentation and storage means, e.g. sensors, controllers, programs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus

Abstract

There is provided a method and apparatus for operating a sterilization chamber such that one version of Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) software is compatible with any number of hardware configurations of the sterilization chamber. The PLC software is divided into a core module for operations which are the same across all hardware configurations, and a template module for hardware specific operations. Configuration data, state data, and live data are segregated from each other.

Claims

1. A method of operating a sterilization chamber having a plurality of subsystems from a computing device, comprising:

receiving configuration data for the chamber at the computing device, the configuration data indicating an identity of devices and sensors comprised in each of the plurality of subsystems;

reading phase information from a sterilization cycle specification; and

invoking a subsystem of the sterilization chamber corresponding to the phase information using a standard interface of the subsystem;

wherein the subsystem executes a phase using the phase information and the configuration data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration data comprises a selected template from a plurality of templates for each subsystem.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the configuration data further comprises a plurality of values corresponding to a plurality of template parameters.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the selected template defines software for controlling a device or a sensor of the subsystem.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the device is selected from the group comprising a valve and a pump, and the sensor is selected from the group comprising a temperature sensor, a pressure sensor, and a humidity sensor.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the computing device is programmed with software for a plurality of device and sensor models, and wherein the selected template identifies at least one of the plurality of device and sensor models.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising state data stored in a first segregated area of a memory of the computing device.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising transmitting the state data to a remote storage device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said transmitting occurs after at least one of:

a) a time interval; and

b) the execution of the phase.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the configuration data is stored in a second segregated area of the memory of the computing device.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

retrieving the state data from the external storage device;

storing the state data in the first segregated memory area.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

reading the state data from the first segregated memory area;

determining a next phase to be executed based on the state data.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the subsystem is selected from a group comprising a gas injection subsystem, a vacuum subsystem, an exhaust subsystem, a vacuum pump subsystem, an atmospheric exhaust subsystem, a condenser subsystem, a back-vent subsystem, a door subsystem, and a heating and cooling subsystem.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the sterilization chamber is an Ethylene Oxide (EtO) chamber.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing device is a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the configuration data is received from an external storage device or application server.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration data is in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format.