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System and method for providing virtual online engineering of a production environment

  • US 7,054,919 B2
  • Filed: 06/15/2001
  • Issued: 05/30/2006
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2001
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for providing remote engineering for an industrial environment, said industrial environment having a plurality of production devices each with at least one digital control unit connected thereto and employing one or more of a diverse plurality of communication protocols to provide a discreet communication channel providing input of instructions and output of data for each production device, comprising the steps of:

  • translating the output of said digital control units into a plurality of discrete data streams having a common communication protocol;

    reversibly encoding said plurality of discrete data streams into a first single data stream using said common communication protocol;

    transmitting said first single data stream to a remote network;

    decoding said first single data stream at the remote network into said discrete data streams, wherein each said discrete data stream is in a format particular to an individual production device;

    identifying by analysis of said data at the remote network at least one target production device of said plurality of production devices to receive instructions for remote engineering;

    formulating a plurality of instructions responsive to said analysis and arranged as a discrete remote engineering instruction set corresponding to each of said at least one target production device, each of said discrete remote engineering instruction sets comprising configurational and operational data relating to a corresponding one of said at least one target production device;

    reversibly encoding said remote engineering instruction sets into a second single data stream using said common communication protocol;

    transmitting said second single data stream to said industrial environment;

    decoding said second single data stream at the local network into said discrete remote engineering instruction set;

    translating said remote engineering instruction set into at least one of said diverse communication protocols executable by the digital control unit connected to each of said at least one target production unit; and

    delivering said remote engineering instruction set over the local network to the target production unit.

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