Cell control device that controls manufacturing cell in response to command from production management device

• US 10,454,951 B2
• Filed: 04/17/2017
• Issued: 10/22/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fanuc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Fanuc Corporation
• Inventors: Goto, Kazuya
• Primary Examiner(s): Schwartz, Darren B
• Application Number:
  US15/489,425
• Publication Number:
  US 20170302687A1
• Time in Patent Office: 918 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1416 Event detection, e.g. attack signature detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1425 Traffic logging, e.g. anomaly detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A cell control device able to prevent unauthorized communication in which a third party makes an unauthorized access to the apparatus. The cell control device includes a communication section that communicates with a production management device or plural machines, a communication controller that executes communication by the communication section, and a communication determination section that monitors an actual communication traffic and compares the actual communication traffic with a planned communication traffic of a communication planned to be executed by the communication controller to determine whether the actual communication traffic is more than the planned communication traffic.

Claims

1. A cell control device configured to control a manufacturing cell including a plurality of machines in accordance with a command from a production management device, the cell control device comprising:

a communication section configured to communicate with the production management device or the plurality of machines; and

a processor configured to

control the communication section to carry out the communication,

predict a time period from a first time point when a first planned communication is completed to a second time point when a second planned communication to be executed next following the first planned communication is started,

monitor, in real time, actual communication traffic in the communication section, during the predicted time period in which no communication is planned, and

in response to detecting actual communication traffic in the communication section during the predicted time period, determine that unauthorized communication occurred.

2. The cell control device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to block the communication by the communication section in response to a determination that unauthorized communication occurred.