ENHANCED OPERATION DIAGNOSTICS

• US 20120083906A1
• Filed: 09/30/2010
• Published: 04/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Weatherhead, Norman A., Matheson, Mark K., Xu, Hui
• Granted Patent: US 8,473,917 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/83
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0267 Fault communication, e.g. human machine interface [HMI]

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided that dynamically render permissive status information on a human-machine interface (HMI) to inform an operator of conditions that are preventing an issued control command from executing. A status display generator deployed on the HMI can be associated with a control action to be initiated in a control program via the HMI. The control action can have one or more programmed conditions or permissives that must be satisfied before the control action can be initiated. Operators wishing to review the states of the various conditions can invoke the status display generator, which reads the conditions and their respective statuses from the control program and generates a permissive summary display listing the conditions together with their respective “ready” or “not ready” states. The permissive summary display provides a convenient reference that allows the operator to quickly assess what actions must be taken to place the system in the appropriate state to execute the desired control action.

Claims

1. A system for visualizing permissive diagnostic information, comprising:

a program analysis component configured to analyze a control program to determine one or more conditions associated with a control action; and

a diagnostic display component configured to generate a summary display listing the one or more conditions and status information associated with the respective one or more permissives.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the program analysis component is configured to reference at least one of a controller output, an output coil, a tag, or an address associated with the control action and to determine the one or more conditions based on analysis of a portion of the control program that controls a state of the at least one of the controller output, the output coil, the tag, or the address.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the program analysis component is configured to reference an equipment module deployed in the control program that executes the control action, and to read the one or more conditions from the equipment module.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the program analysis component is configured to reference a control module deployed within the control program and having the one or more conditions encoded therein, and to read the one or more conditions from the control module.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein at least a subset of the one or more conditions comprise multiple conditions that are aggregated by a multiplex module associated with the control module, and wherein the program analysis component identifies the multiple conditions aggregated by the multiplex module

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a format selection component that selects a display format for the summary display.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the diagnostic display component renders on the summary display an indication conveying whether at least one of the one or more conditions is in an appropriate state for execution of the control action.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the program analysis component reads from the control program at least one of a comment string or a label string associated with at least one of the one or more conditions, and the diagnostic display component renders the at least one of the comment string or the label string on the summary display to identify the at least one of the one or more conditions.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the program analysis component and the diagnostic display component are deployed in a human-machine interface (HMI) communicatively coupled to an automation controller that executes the control program.

10. A method for displaying permissive status information, comprising:

analyzing a portion of a control program, executing in an industrial controller, that controls execution of a specified control function;

identifying, based on the analyzing, one or more programmed conditions that must be satisfied in order to execute the specified control action; and

generating a diagnostic display that lists the one or more programmed conditions and presents state information for the respective one or more programmed conditions.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the analyzing comprises analyzing the portion of the control program that controls a state of at least one of a controller output, an output coil, a tag, or an address that initiates the specified control function.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the analyzing comprises analyzing an equipment module deployed in the industrial controller that initiates the specified control function.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the analyzing comprises analyzing a control module deployed in the industrial controller having the one or more programmed conditions encoded therein.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the analyzing the control module further comprising determining whether a multiplex module is providing an aggregated condition status to the control module and identifying a subset of the one or more programmed condition being aggregated by the multiplex module.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising selecting a display format for the summary display from a plurality of predefined display formats.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising rendering on the diagnostic display an indication specifying whether at least one of the one or more programmed conditions is in a state required for execution of the specified control function.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

reading at least one of a comment string or a label string associated with a program address for at least one of the one or more programmed conditions; and

displaying the at least one of the comment string or the label string on the diagnostic display.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the analyzing comprises analyzing the portion of the control program remotely from a human-machine interface (HMI) communicatively coupled to the industrial controller.

19. A system for rendering control diagnostic information, comprising:

means for polling a control program to identify one or more conditions that must be satisfied before an issued control command will be executed by the control program; and

means for generating a condition summary that displays the one or more conditions and at least one state associated with at least one of the one or more conditions.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for displaying the at least one state as an indication of whether the at least one state allows the issued control command to be executed.