EXTENSIBLE ASSET CLASSES IN A MONITORING SYSTEM HAVING A COMMON PLATFORM
First Claim
1. An electronic communication system, for use in an environment having a plurality of physical assets of different types and uses, the electronic communication system comprising:
- a processor;
a memory;
a communication interface;
an object model stored in the memory, the object model including one or more class objects, each of the one or more class objects being indicative of a physical or logical entity within the asset environment, each of the class objects including one or more features defining one or more aspects of a physical or logical entity within the asset environment, and feature fields indicating data to be stored for each of the features; and
a multiplicity of platform services coupled to the communication interface that execute on the processor to receive and process messages from one or more applications, wherein one or more of the multiplicity of platform services uses the object model to perform actions with respect to the messages from the one or more applications;
wherein at least one of the platform services manages the object model by enabling the object model to be extended to include additional object information defining additional information about physical or logical entities in the asset environment.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
An application software platform is provided for use in a process plant or other environment to enable various different applications to run, to obtain access to, and to use data from various different assets in the plant or other asset environment in a consistent and easily understood manner. The software platform includes a class-based object structure or model that is set up and used to organize and to efficiently provide access to data about, generated by, or obtained from the assets in the plant. This class-based object structure may be used to provide efficient and organized communications between the various monitoring or other applications and the plant assets or sources of data. The class-based object structure is extensible and includes or defines various hierarchies of class objects that, in turn, define various levels of the assets or other physical or logic entities being monitored (i.e., from which or about which data is being obtained), as well as properties and behaviors of the assets or physical or logical entities being monitored.
17 Citations
74 Claims
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1. An electronic communication system, for use in an environment having a plurality of physical assets of different types and uses, the electronic communication system comprising:
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a processor; a memory; a communication interface; an object model stored in the memory, the object model including one or more class objects, each of the one or more class objects being indicative of a physical or logical entity within the asset environment, each of the class objects including one or more features defining one or more aspects of a physical or logical entity within the asset environment, and feature fields indicating data to be stored for each of the features; and a multiplicity of platform services coupled to the communication interface that execute on the processor to receive and process messages from one or more applications, wherein one or more of the multiplicity of platform services uses the object model to perform actions with respect to the messages from the one or more applications; wherein at least one of the platform services manages the object model by enabling the object model to be extended to include additional object information defining additional information about physical or logical entities in the asset environment. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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29. A method of performing communications in an electronic communication system supporting an environment having a plurality of physical assets of different types and uses, the communication method comprising:
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storing an object model in an electronic memory, the object model including one or more class objects, each of the one or more class objects being indicative of a physical or logical entity within the asset environment, each of the class objects including one or more features defining one or more features of a physical or logical entity within the asset environment, and feature fields for data to be stored for each of the features; executing, via a processor, a communication interface to communicate with one or more external applications; executing, via a processor, a multiplicity of platform services to receive and process messages from the one or more external applications, further including causing one or more of the multiplicity of platform services to use the object model to perform actions with respect to messages from the one or more external applications; and executing, via a processor, at least one of the platform services to manage the object model by enabling the object model to be extended to include additional object information defining additional information about physical or logical entities in the asset environment. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54)
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55. An electronic communication system, for use in an environment having a plurality of physical assets of different types and uses, the electronic communication system comprising:
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a processor; a memory; a communication interface; an object model stored in the memory, the object model including, a plurality of asset objects, each of the plurality of asset objects being indicative of a physical asset within the asset environment and including one or more features defining one or more features of an asset within the asset environment, and one or more relationship definitions, each of the one or more relationship definitions indicating a relationship between two or more asset objects; and a multiplicity of platform services coupled to the communication interface that execute on the processor to receive and process messages from one or more applications received via the communication interface, wherein one or more of the multiplicity of platform services uses the object model to perform actions with respect to messages from the one or more applications. - View Dependent Claims (56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74)
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Specification