SIMULATION CONTROLS FOR MODEL VARIABLITY AND RANDOMNESS

• US 20090089027A1
• Filed: 09/28/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Morse, Richard A., Sturrock, David T.
• Granted Patent: US 7,801,710 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/6
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 17/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30

Abstract

A tool for simulating an industrial control system is provided. The tool includes a simulation component to emulate one or more simulation models according to a simulated execution environment. A switch component is associated with the simulation component to selectively enable or disable variability in the simulation models.

Claims

1. A tool for simulating an industrial control system, comprising:

a simulation component to emulate one or more simulation models according to a simulated execution environment; and

a switch component associated with the simulation component to selectively enable or disable variability in the simulation models.

2. The system of claim 1, the simulation models are related to a device model, an industry model, or a manufacturing model.

3. The system of claim 1, the simulation model allows randomness in the simulation models to be enabled or disabled per a given application.

4. The system of claim 1, the switching component is provided as part of a user interface.

5. The system of claim 1, the simulation component enables manual and automatic modes for testing.

6. The system of claim 1, the simulation component enables translation of a stochastic model into a deterministic model.

7. The system of claim 1, the simulation component enables expressions to be created to allow modifications of returned parameters.

8. The system of claim 7, the expressions can be modified programmatically though simulation instructions.

9. The system of claim 1, the simulation component enables a user variable to be generated that is tested at runtime to determine if variability is enabled.

10. The system of claim 1, the simulation component enables returning a calculated mean of a distribution.

11. The system of claim 1, the simulation component processes failure considerations, branch block instructions, or schedules.

12. The system of claim 1, the simulation component provides a customization component to customize model behaviors.

13. The system of claim 12, the customization component allows failures to be converted to fixed (mean) failure intervals.

14. The system of claim 12, the customization component provides options of what to return from distributions.

15. The system of claim 1, the simulation component provides a variability off expression.

16. The system of claim 1, the simulation component provides a variability factor expression.

17. The system of claim 1, further comprising a knowledge database to store past experiences relating to applications, components, and systems.

18. The system of claim 1, the simulation component includes one or more parameters relating to device parameters, instruction parameters, message parameters, network parameters, equipment parameters, or controller parameters.

19. A method of providing interface options for a simulation system, comprising:

simulating one or more simulation models according to a simulated execution environment; and

providing simulation switches to selectively enable, disable, or partially disable variability or randomness in the simulation models.

20. A simulation tool for an industrial control system, comprising:

means for collecting data relating to an industrial control system simulation or model;

means for determining variability options for the industrial control system or model; and

means for switching the variability options for the industrial control system or model.