System and methodology that facilitates client and server data exchange in a distributed industrial automation environment

• US 7,599,999 B1
• Filed: 05/21/2002
• Issued: 10/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Software Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Inventors: Armstrong, Larry Dawson, Baier, John Joseph, Jasper, Taryl Jon
• Primary Examiner(s): Vaughn, Jr.; William C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shaw; Peling A
• Application Number:
  US10/152,513
• Time in Patent Office: 2,695 Days
• Field of Search: 709202-203, 709/213, 709/216, 709223-224, 711/147
• US Class Current: 709/216
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/544 Buffers; Shared memory; Pipes

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology providing a multi-protocol data exchange between client and server components in an industrial automation environment. According to one aspect of the present invention, an industrial control system is provided that includes a server application operative to exchange data with an industrial controller. A server component associated with the server application is adapted to communicate via a plurality of protocols to facilitate the data exchange. A host component exposes objects in the server component, wherein the objects can be employed to communicate via a shared memory protocol according to a local operating environment. In addition, the objects can be adapted to communicate via a multicast protocol in accordance with a remote operating environment.

Claims

1. An industrial control system that facilitates data exchange between multiple and distributed control components, comprising the following components stored in memory and executed by a controller:

a server application operative to exchange data with an industrial controller;

a server component associated with the server application, the server component communicates via a plurality of protocols to facilitate exchange of the data, the server application dynamically selects a suitable protocol for data communications based upon a relationship or configuration between the server component node and the industrial controller node, wherein a relationship can be chosen from one of;

shared interaction when the nodes are operating on a same machine, distributed interaction when multiple nodes are operating on similar machines in a same environment, or remote interaction when the nodes are operating remotely over a network; and

a host component that exposes objects in the server component to a plurality of clients via service-specific interfaces and determines a local operating environment or remote operating environment, the objects employed to communicate with a client component over a shared memory protocol according to the local operating environment, a multicast protocol according to the remote operating environment, wherein in the shared memory protocol the client component accesses a shared memory in the objects to retrieve data and in the multicast protocol data is transmitted to multiple clients, the client component parses through the received data and accesses data that is relevant to the client component.

2. The system of claim 1, the plurality of protocols further comprising at least one of OLE for Process control (OPC) and Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM).

3. The system of claim 1, the server component is a data access server toolkit.

4. The system of claim 3, the client component further comprises a data access client toolkit to that exchanges data with the data access server toolkit.

5. The system of claim 4, the shared memory protocol further comprising at least one of a data and a name provider that is updated by the data access server toolkit, the contents of the at least one data and name provider periodically transferred to a shared memory buffer.

6. The system of claim 5, the shared memory buffer accessed by the data access client toolkit to provide data to a client application.

7. The system of claim 5, the shared memory buffer receiving at least one of PCCC information and I/O network information from the data access server toolkit.

8. The system of claim 4, the data access client toolkit is configured as an in-process server with a client application.

9. The system of claim 4, the data access client toolkit manages one or more server connections and adjusts a flag according to a connection status, the connection status including failure detection of the connection.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising one or more redundant server connections, including at least one of a favor primary and a stay with current server condition configuration associated with the connections.

11. The system of claim 5, the data provider processes one or more memory blocks.

12. The system of claim 1, the multicast protocol further comprising updating a memory buffer via the server component and distributing the contents of the memory buffer to one or more clients via a network messaging command.

13. The system of claim 1, at least one of the server application, the server component, and the host component are integrated within the industrial controller.

14. The system of claim 6, the client application is a Human Machine Interface.

15. A method to facilitate data exchange in an industrial controller environment, comprising:

employing a processor to execute computer executable instructions stored in memory to perform the following steps;

adapting a server component in an industrial controller to exchange data with a client component;

determining a local configuration and a distributed configuration to exchange the data, wherein in the local configuration the server component and the client component operate on a same machine, in the distributed configuration a plurality of client components interact with the server component;

dynamically selecting a protocol for data communications, based upon the determined configuration;

directing data according to a shared memory protocol in the local configuration, wherein the data received from the industrial controller is directed into a shared memory buffer that the client component has access to, the client component accesses the shared memory buffer to retrieve the data; and

directing data according to a multicast protocol in the distributed configuration, wherein the data is transmitted to the plurality of client components and each one of the client components parses through the received data and accesses data that is relevant to the client component.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising configuring the client component as an in-process server that communicates with a client application.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising dynamically adding and removing items via an OLE for Process Control (OPC) interface.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising employing the OPC interface to add groups and items that are relevant for a current display screen application.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising formatting messages for adding the groups and items.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

parsing through requested information;

setting up internal structures; and

passing items that are valid for one or more devices.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising returning at least one of a block id, an offset, and a size.

22. The method of claim 21, the block id representing a handle to be employed for scheduling a device read and updating the values.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

determining when it is time to read a data block; and

employing the block id to write the data block to a shared memory buffer that has been reserved for that block.

24. The method of claim 15, further comprising adding a public group that corresponds to at least one of a client data request and a current display screen.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising employing item handles that are assigned in a configuration phase.

26. The method of claim 15, further comprising formatting network messages for adding groups and items via the multicast protocol.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising transmitting data values via the multicast protocol according to a change of state of the data values from a previous state.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising parsing a received message buffer to determine what data values have been requested.

29. An industrial control system that facilitates data exchange between multiple and distributed control components, comprising the following components stored in memory and executed by a controller:

means for exchanging data between a client application and an industrial controller;

means for dynamically selecting a suitable protocol for data communications based upon a relationship or configuration between the client application and the industrial controller;

means for determining a local configuration when both operate on the same machine and a distributed configuration when multiple client applications interact with the industrial controller, to exchange data;

means for directing data according to a shared memory protocol in the local configuration, wherein the data from the industrial controller is directed into a shared memory buffer, the client component accesses the shared memory buffer to retrieve the data; and

means for directing data according to a multicast protocol in the distributed configuration, wherein the data from the industrial controller is transmitted to the multiple clients, the client application parses through the received data and accesses data that is relevant to the client application.

30. An industrial control system that facilitates data exchange between multiple and distributed control components, comprising the following components stored in memory and executed by a controller:

a server application operative to exchange data with an industrial controller, the server application dynamically selects a suitable protocol for data communications based upon a relationship or configuration between the industrial controller and the server application;

a server component associated with the server application, the server component determines a local configuration environment when the server component and the industrial controller are resident on a same machine and a remote configuration environment when the server component and the industrial controller operate remotely over a network; and

a host component that exposes objects in the server component, the objects employed to communicate with a client component over a shared memory protocol according to the local configuration environment, and over a multicast protocol according to the remote configuration environment, wherein in the multicast protocol the data received form the industrial controller is directed into a memory buffer and is transmitted to multiple clients, the client component parses through the received data and accesses data relevant to a client application.

31. An industrial control system that facilitates data exchange between multiple and distributed control components, comprising the following components stored in memory and executed by a controller:

a client application operative to exchange data with an industrial controller, the client application dynamically selects a suitable protocol for data communications based upon a relationship or configuration between the industrial controller and the client application;

a client component associated with the client application, the client component determines a local operating environment when the industrial controller and the client component operate on a same machine and

a remote operating environment when the industrial controller and the client component operate remotely over a network; and

a connection component operative with the client component to select a shared memory protocol according to the local operating environment and a multicast protocol according to a remote operating environment, wherein in the shared memory protocol data received from the industrial controller is directed into a shared memory buffer, the client component accesses the shared memory buffer to retrieve the data and in the multicast protocol the data received from the industrial controller is transmitted to multiple clients and the client component parses through the received data to access data that is relevant to the client application.

32. The industrial control system of claim 31, the client application is a Human Machine Interface (HMI), the HMI, the HMI having a graphical display output and one or more inputs to interact with the industrial controller.