Services for industrial control systems

• US 7,676,279 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Issued: 03/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Kalan, Michael D., Hood, Gavan W., Chand, Sujeet, Hall, Kenwood H., D'Mura, Paul R., Plache, Kenneth S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bahta; Kidest
• Application Number:
  US11/536,827
• Publication Number:
  US 20080189636A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,257 Days
• Field of Search: 700 17- 19, 700/83, 700/180, 710/100, 710/105, 710/107, 710/110, 715/764, 715/771, 715/780, 370/449
• US Class Current: 700/17
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40 Bus networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/4026 Bus for use in automation systems

Abstract

A message component for an industrial automation system is provided. This includes a service component that is employed to locate functionality of applications associated with a control system message bus. An operations component exchanges messages with the message bus, where the service component and the operations component form an external view to facilitate communications between the applications.

Claims

1. A system embodied on a computer-readable storage medium that, when executed on one or more processors, facilitates communications in an industrial automation system, comprising:

a message component, comprising;

a service component that locates functionality of applications communicatively coupled to a control system message bus; and

an operations component that exchanges messages with the message bus, the service component and the operations component form a browsable external view that illustrates relationships between the applications and specifies security requirements, access rights, and transport protocols required to connect to each application, the external view enabling selection of functionality associated with a first application on the message bus to be supplied to a second application on the message bus to form a control application.

2. The system of claim 1, the service component is associated with at least one messaging application.

3. The system of claim 1, the service component is associated with at least one industrial control protocol.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a platform directory to which the operations component publishes data associated with the applications for access by a user, the data including at least security requirements for accessing the application and protocol requirements for communicating with the application.

5. The system of claim 1, the service component is adapted as a web service that is compatible with industrial protocols.

6. The system of claim 1, the service component links lower level control applications with upper level management servers.

7. The system of claim 1, the service component publishes at least one of security requirements, access rights, a policy, a diagnostic, a port, or a transport protocol associated with each application on the message bus.

8. The system of claim 4, further comprising a user interface that allows application developers to annotate applications with requirements for access to externally visible components, the requirements browsable by a client using the platform directory.

9. The system of claim 1, the service component is associated with an interface that includes one or more actions.

10. The system of claim 9, the service component determines default behaviors from the interface and the operations component determines default behaviors from the actions.

11. The system of claim 10, the service component is associated with control system meta-data.

12. The system of claim 10, further comprising a user interface to allow users to override the default behaviors.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising a browser component to locate desired application functionality.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising an interface to display data mappings.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one module that is associated with at least one of an active or a passive resource of the industrial automation system.

16. The system of claim 15, the at least one module includes standard module behaviors and attribute patterns that are represented using common data model representations for module classes, module templates, and module inheritance.

17. The system of claim 16, the module classes and module templates are maintained in libraries that facilitate access to desired system functionality.

18. The system of claim 15, the module further comprising one or more attributes that include one or more system messages that allow modules to listen for and publish data model messages to external components.

19. A computer-readable storage medium having a data structure stored thereon to facilitate communications in an industrial automation environment, comprising:

a first data field that specifies operations that communicate with a message bus;

a second data field to specify services that employ the operations to communicate with the message bus to locate desired functionality associated with applications coupled to the message bus; and

a third data field that generates an external view of the applications based in part on the operations and the services, the external view illustrating relationships between the applications together with security requirements, access rights, and transport protocols required to connect to each of the applications.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, further comprising a module interfaces field that is associated with the services.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, further comprising a service data field that publishes data associated with the services.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, the service data field defining and publishing at least one module access policy for at least one service.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, the service data field further comprising a frequency field that defines and publishes a data transmission rate for at least one service.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, the service data field further comprising a protocol data field that defines and publishes a protocol requirement for at least one service.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, the service data field further comprising a data type field that defines and publishes at least one of a data type or a message type required to interact with the service.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising a deployed instances field that identifies deployed instances that currently support an interface associated with a given application on the message bus.

27. A method for coupling industrial control components, comprising:

employing a processor executing computer executable instructions stored on a computer readable storage medium to implement the following acts;

defining one or more interfaces for each of a plurality of modules communicatively coupled to an industrial control system message bus, each of the one or more interfaces providing a point of communication through which to interact with each of the respective modules;

defining at least one service that publishes functionality and access policy information associated with the plurality of modules and

generating a user interface that provides a view of the published functionality and access policy information for each of the plurality of modules, the user interface allowing a user to locate at least two modules on the message bus having desired functionality and to couple the at least two modules across the message bus via the respective interfaces associated with each of the at least two modules to form a control application.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising defining one or more operations for the at least one service.

29. The method of claim 27, further comprising discovering the at least one service by browsing a platform directory containing an index of the functionality associated with the plurality of modules.

30. The method of claim 27, further comprising defining at least one action that is associated with the one or more interfaces.

31. The method of claim 27, further comprising determining default values for the at least one service.

32. The method of claim 31, further comprising generating an interface to override the default values.

33. A messaging system for an industrial control environment, comprising:

a processor;

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory having stored therein computer-executable instructions configured to implement the messaging system, including;

means for interfacing to a control system bus;

means for locating functionality associated with a set of applications coupled to the control systems bus; and

means for generating a user interface that provides a browsable view of the functionality, the user interface facilitating selective connectivity between the set of applications to form at least one control application.

34. The messaging system of claim 33, further comprising means for publishing data relating to each of the applications, the data including at least security requirements for accessing the respective applications and identification of domains allowed to access the respective applications.