INDUSTRIAL SIMULATION USING REDIRECTED I/O MODULE CONFIGURATIONS

• US 20150019191A1
• Filed: 10/01/2014
• Published: 01/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Inventors: Maturana, Francisco P., Staron, Raymond J., Carnahan, Danny L., Hall, Kenwood H.
• Granted Patent: US 10,037,443 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/13
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 17/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/0423 Input/output
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/13174 Pc, computer connected to plc to simulate machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06G 7/66 for control systems for optimisation G06G7/122

Abstract

A simulation environment is provided for running a process simulation used to validate an industrial control program. The simulation environment exposes the I/O module configurations defined in the control program and retrieves module configuration information therefrom. This I/O module configuration information is combined with generic, module-specific I/O module profiles to create a pool of available controller I/O points, which can be selectively associated with I/O points in the simulation to create an I/O point mapping. During control program validation, simulated I/O data is exchanged between the process simulation and the I/O module instances in the controller in accordance with the I/O point mapping. A variation of these techniques for use with cloud-based emulations is also described.

Claims

1. A system for interfacing a cloud-based simulation with a virtualized controller, comprising:

a configuration retrieval component configured to discover and retrieve I/O module configuration data associated with a virtualized controller executing on a cloud platform, wherein the I/O module configuration data defines one or more clone I/O points of the virtualized controller; and

an I/O normalization component configured to transform a communication protocol of the one or more clone I/O points to yield one or more encapsulated I/O points that conform to a standardized communication protocol; and

a data exchange model configured to exchange simulation data between the one or more encapsulated I/O points and corresponding one or more simulation I/O points of the cloud-based simulation in accordance with the standardized communication protocol.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the cloud-based simulation comprises a simulation of an industrial automation system.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an emulation master role component configured to communicatively link the system to a client device via a cloud portal.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the emulation master role component is further configured to receive, from the client device, mapping input that selectively associates a clone I/O point from the one or more clone I/O points with a simulation I/O point of the one or more simulation I/O points to yield an I/O point mapping.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the data exchange model is further configured to exchange the simulation data between the one or more encapsulated I/O points and corresponding one or more simulation I/O points in accordance with the I/O point mapping.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the data exchange model is further configured to retrieve, from cloud-based storage, a generic I/O module profile corresponding to an I/O module represented by the I/O module configuration data, and to customize the generic I/O module profile using the I/O module configuration data to yield an available clone I/O point list.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the emulation master role component is further configured to send the available clone I/O point list to the client device for selection of the clone I/O point to be mapped to the simulation I/O point.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a motion analyzer component configured to monitor the cloud-based simulation and the virtualized controller during a simulation sequence and generate a performance statistic for the simulation sequence.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the data exchange model is further configured to update at least one of the cloud-based simulation or the virtualized controller based on operational data generated by the industrial automation system and received at the cloud platform.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising receiving the operational data from a cloud agent device that collects the operational data from the industrial automation system and sends the operational data to the cloud platform.

11. A method for establishing an industrial automation simulation on a cloud platform, comprising:

querying, by a system comprising at least one processor, a virtualized controller instantiated in the cloud platform to identify I/O module configuration information configured for the virtualized controller, wherein the I/O module configuration information defines one or more clone I/O points of the virtualized controller;

retrieving, by the system, the I/O module configuration information from the virtualized controller;

converting, by the system, a communication protocol of the one or more clone I/O points to a standardized communication protocol to yield one or more encapsulated I/O points; and

exchanging, by the system, simulation data between the one or more encapsulated I/O points and one or more simulation data points of the industrial automation simulation in accordance with the standardized communication protocol.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving, from a client device communicatively connected to the cloud platform, mapping input data that selectively associates one of the one or more encapsulated I/O points with a simulation point of the one or more simulation points to yield an I/O point mapping.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the exchanging the simulation data comprises exchanging the simulation data between the one or more encapsulated I/O points and the one or more simulation data points based on the I/O point mapping.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising

identifying an I/O module corresponding to the I/O module configuration information;

retrieving a generic I/O module profile corresponding to the I/O module from cloud storage; and

customizing the generic I/O module profile using the I/O module configuration information resulting in an available clone I/O point list.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising sending the available clone I/O point list to the client device,

wherein the receiving the mapping input data comprises receiving the mapping input data generated based on interaction with the available clone I/O point list via the client device.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

executing a simulation sequence of the industrial automation simulation and the virtualized controller; and

generating simulation performance data based on a monitoring of the virtualized controller and the industrial automation simulation during the simulation sequence.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving at least one of operational data or device configuration data generated by an industrial automation system corresponding to the industrial automation simulation; and

modifying at least one of the industrial automation simulation or the virtualized controller based on at least one of the operational data or the device configuration data.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, in response to execution, cause a system comprising a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

discovering an I/O module configuration corresponding to an I/O module instance defined in a virtualized controller instantiated on a cloud platform, wherein the I/O module configuration defines one or more clone I/O points of the virtualized controller;

converting a communication protocol of the one or more clone I/O points to a standardized communication protocol to yield one or more encapsulated I/O points; and

performing a simulation sequence using the virtualized controller and a simulation of an industrial automation system that executes on the cloud platform, wherein the performing comprises exchanging simulation data between the simulation and the virtualized controller via the one or more encapsulated I/O points according to the standardized communication protocol.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

retrieving, from a module profile storage maintained on the cloud platform, a generic I/O module profile corresponding to an I/O module identified by the I/O module configuration; and

customizing the generic I/O module profile using the I/O module configuration to yield an available clone I/O point list.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise communicatively linking a clone I/O point selected from the available clone I/O point list to a simulation I/O point of the simulation based on mapping data received from a client device, wherein the mapping data selects the clone I/O point to be linked to the simulated I/O point.