APPLICATION BUILDER FOR INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION

• US 20100083232A1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Canada Ltd. (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ICS Triplex ISaGRAF Inc. (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Inventors: Brunet, Gilles, Laliberte, Jean-Francois, Larouche, Olivier, Darveau, Frederic, Chouinard, Julien, Trang, Chan-Dara, Lavallee, Denis
• Granted Patent: US 8,255,875 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/124
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3648 using additional hardware
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

A control system development platform is provided. The platform includes a shell component adapted to support development of a control systems application. An abstract model is associated with the shell component to facilitate development of the control systems applications.

Claims

1. A control system development platform, comprising:

a shell component adapted with an abstract model to support development of a control systems application; and

a debug component operative with the shell component, the debug component enables troubleshooting of the control systems application.

2. The system of claim 1, debug component delegates debugging commands to one or more field bus instances.

3. The system of claim 1, the debugging component delegates event notifications to a debug engine.

4. The system of claim 3, the debug engine processes multiple concurrent resource connections.

5. The system of claim 3, the debug engine translates breakpoints, stepping commands, and events.

6. The system of claim 1, the shell component further comprising an isolated mode function or an integrated mode function.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a field bus component that provides a common application programming interface manage dialog, upload, download, and on-line changes with target platforms.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising an abstract service that unifies communications error messages in an exception pattern.

9. The system of claim 8, the abstract service provides methods to subscribe a group of variables and to set, lock, or unlock the variables.

10. The system of claim 8, further comprising packaging a protocol channel in an event argument and notifying a subscriber to the event.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a trace component to view system signals.

12. The system of claim 11, the trace component provides signal change notifications.

13. The system of claim 11, the trace component serializes historical data.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising a spy list to set or display variable or parameter values.

15. The system of claim 14, the spy list displays short descriptions for instances.

16. The system of claim 14, the spy list enables users to drag and drop variables from a dictionary onto the list.

17. A control system development method, comprising:

adapting a shell component to an abstract model to support development of a control systems application; and

debugging the control systems application via the shell component.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising adapting a trace tool to the shell component to enable viewing of system control signals.

19. The method of claim 17, adapting a spy list to the shell component to enable updating and viewing of system variables.

20. A development platform for a control system, comprising:

means for interfacing to an abstract model to support development of a control systems application; and

means for troubleshooting the control systems application via the shell component and the abstract model.