System and methodology that facilitate factory automation services in a distributed industrial automation environment

• US 7,392,100 B1
• Filed: 08/15/2002
• Issued: 06/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Software Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Thomas, David Ellis, Parakh, Neville J., Jasper, Taryl Jon, Bromley, Clifton Harold
• Primary Examiner(s): Picard; Leo
• Assistant Examiner(s): KASENGE, CHARLES R
• Application Number:
  US10/219,099
• Time in Patent Office: 2,140 Days
• Field of Search: 700/80, 700/83, 700/103, 700/108, 700/109, 700/110, 700/96, 717/101, 717/108, 717/120, 717/165, 707/100, 707/10
• US Class Current: 700/83
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4188 characterised by CIM planning or realisation
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31024 Superior controller and internal, external resources controller modules
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31166 Access data by name, object, stored in list, database
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31208 Server node to watch, store message, variable, data between lon, network
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31439 Alarms can be warning, alert or fault
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology providing automation services in a distributed industrial controller environment. In one aspect of the present invention, a data access service is provided that includes, sending and receiving data to and from a data access service namespace operative in the distributed controller environment. In another aspect of the present invention, an alarming service is provided wherein data values are monitored in a server component according to predetermined conditions configured by a user or other entity. If the data values are determined to be outside of boundaries as defined by the predetermined conditions, an alarm can be communicated to a plurality of other components cooperating in the distributed environment.

Claims

1. An industrial control system, comprising:

a namespace component that aggregates a plurality of service names associated with one or more automation services into one or more areas, the service names associated with a plurality of logical names and respective logical server process names to ensure name uniqueness within an area, the automation services interact with an industrial controller and include at least one of a data access service and an alarm service, wherein the data access service comprises a client component that at least one of binds to a location in an access hierarchy, utilizes logical item names to establish connections to data items and receives data at a client-specified rate; and

an interface component that accesses the namespace component via at least one of the plurality of logical names in order to facilitate execution of the automation services.

2. The system of claim 1, the interface component and the namespace component operate on the same server.

3. The system of claim 1, the interface component and the namespace component operate on a client and a server.

4. The system of claim 3, the client is at least one of Human and Machine Interface application, a display application a trend application, and a report application.

5. The system of claim 1, the data access service further comprising data access components that create data access behavior and facilitate at least one of static configuration and runtime performance.

6. The system of claim 1, the data access service further comprising at least one of management of multiple server connections on behalf of client applications, periodically testing connections between client and servers, and enabling fail-over behaviors in similarly configured server instances.

7. The system of claim 1, the data access service further comprising at least one of a namespace server to locate server instances in an access hierarchy and provide browse support to extract data item names, and a name provider component to support off-line behavior by obtaining data items from a data file.

8. The system of claim 1, the data access service establishes an advise connection to receive updates via a data access callback interface.

9. The system of claim 1, the data access service sending a single copy of data to multiple clients operating on a single machine and employing a multicast of the data to multiple clients operating on separate machines.

10. The system of claim 1, the data access service communicating data values atomically in a block to facilitate time concurrency with respect to data values in the same block.

11. The system of claim 1, the data access service publishes data items to multiple locations in an access hierarchy and filters the hierarchy for a subset of the data items.

12. The system of claim 1, the alarm service facilitate automation behavior to perform logical testing on one or more data values in a time sequence of values and cause an action to be taken based on results of the test.

13. The system of claim 12, the alarm service notifying an entity based on a determination derived from the logical testing that the one or more data values fall outside of a predetermined range.

14. The system of claim 13, the predetermined range further comprising at least one of a high, low, high/high, and a low/low threshold.

15. The system of claim 12, further comprising sending at least one of an alarm and an event based upon at least one of a logical testing on the one or more data values and conformance of the one or more data values to statistical formulae or mathematical formulae, the formulae including at least one of a rate of change of a data value exceeding a predetermined rate, a deviation of a data value from a predetermined norm, and other mathematical tests.

16. The system of claim 13, the alarm service further comprising at least one of an alarm condition definition to define and create trigger logic which can monitor for out of range conditions;

an alarm occurrence detection to evaluate the alarm trigger logic and create an occurrence upon a true evaluation;

an alarm occurrence state manager in which the occurrence navigates a state space that includes client notification and acknowledgment of the occurrence; and

an alarm occurrence history manager in which a time history of alarm occurrences is maintained for later inspection.

17. The system of claim 1, the alarm service further comprising at least one of on-line behavior, off-line behavior, design activity, maintenance activity, and operations activity.

18. The system of claim 1, the alarm service are associated with a service item namespace.

19. The system of claim 1, the alarm service further comprising a multiplexing component to interact with a plurality of alarm servers.

20. The system of claim 1, the alarm service including at least one of an enable state, an active state, and an acknowledge state.

21. The system of claim 1, the alarm service providing a message that is associated with the alarm.

22. The system of claim 1, the alarm service providing a filtering aspect to select a subset of alarms that are published within an area.

23. The system of claim 1, the alarm service including an alarm based on an analysis of diagnostic log items.

24. A method to facilitate data access with an industrial controller, comprising:

identifying a directory area to bind a context;

creating an item group specifying a data update rate;

inserting items into the group relative to the bind context; and

activating the group to begin data access with the industrial controller.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising obtaining a container interface on the directory area.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising querying the container interface for a service management interface.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising at least one of binding to the service management interface and passing a service identifier.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising receiving a result from the service via a data access proxy.

29. A method to facilitate alarm services with an industrial controller, comprising:

selecting a base area of an access hierarchy;

selecting one or more data access items in the base area;

creating alarm triggers that employ the selected data items based at least in part on an analysis of a diagnostic log relating to the selected data items; and

exposing the alarm triggers as service items to one or more client applications.

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising at least one of binding alarm services in an access area and employing alarm interfaces to subscribe to alarm occurrences in the area.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising publishing the alarm services in the area to form an overall control process.

32. The method of claim 29, further comprising providing semantics for creating a client subscription and notification path.

33. The method of claim 29, further comprising providing an alarm condition flag as part of the alarm triggers.

34. An industrial control system, comprising:

a namespace component that aggregates a plurality of service names into one or more areas, the plurality of service names accessible by at least one Human and Machine Interface (HMI) and one or more servers, the service names associated with a plurality of logical names and respective logical server process names to ensure name uniqueness within an area, the servers interact with at least one industrial controller and provide at least one automation service, the at least one automation service includes at least one of a data access service and an alarm service, wherein the data access service comprises a client component that at least one of binds to a location in an access hierarchy, utilizes logical item names to establish connections to data items and receives data at a client-specified rate; and

an interface component that accesses the namespace component via at least one of the plurality of logical names in order to facilitate operations between the at least one automation service and the HMI.