Method and apparatus for partitioning industrial control data

• US 7,721,019 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Diblasio, Anthony J., Pierce, Scott A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kindred; Alford W
• Assistant Examiner(s): Abad; Farley J
• Application Number:
  US11/239,947
• Publication Number:
  US 20070076264A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,691 Days
• Field of Search: 700/86, 710/30, 710/31, 713/1
• US Class Current: 710/30
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/054 Input/output
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/1166 Create optimum data blocks for transmission
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/15023 Data packet, each module reads input stream and replaces with output
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

An industrial controller includes a processing unit and a memory. The industrial controller is operable to communicate using an optimized connection packet including I/O data from a plurality of I/O modules arranged as an unstructured data block. The processing unit is operable to operate on the I/O data within the optimized connection packet to control a process. The memory is operable to store a plurality of cast tags. Each cast tag is associated with one of the I/O modules and provides a logical reference to a subset of the unformatted data block including at least a portion of the I/O data for the associated I/O module.

Claims

1. An industrial control system, comprising:

a plurality of I/O modules operable to interface with input devices and output devices on an industrial machine or process, the I/O modules communicating input I/O data representing the status of the input devices and output I/O data controlling the operation of the output devices;

a scanner operable to exchange the I/O data with the I/O modules through a network, the scanner assembling the I/O data for a plurality of the I/O modules into a single optimized connection packet, wherein the I/O data for the plurality of I/O modules communicating with the scanner is arranged in a predetermined arrangement data block within the optimized connection packet, and wherein the I/O data is identified as to type and I/O module only by a relative location within the data block; and

an industrial controller operable to exchange the optimized connection packet with the scanner, the industrial controller being further operable to store a control program including a plurality of cast tags, wherein each cast tag is referenced to a subset of the I/O data in the data block associated with a different single I/O module, and wherein each cast tag identifies a particular I/O module and includes a label for the data, a data type which is effective to characterize the I/O data for purposes of the executing the control program, and a reference to a location of the I/O data in the data block;

wherein data for a particular I/O module may be accessed from the optimized connection packet by a programmatic reference of the cast tag at the industrial controller without communicating this information in the optimized connection packet.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the cast tags includes a first cast tag referencing an input portion of the I/O data and a second cast tag referencing an output portion of the I/O data for a particular I/O module.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the I/O data comprises at least one of input data and output data.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a programming terminal operable to generate the cast tags based on a predetermined arrangement of the I/O data in the data block.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising an interface unit operable to interface with the industrial controller and employ the cast tags to reference data associated with one of the I/O modules.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the interface unit comprises a human machine interface unit.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the data type specifies member names and data formats for the I/O data associated with the I/O module.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the I/O data for at least one of the I/O modules includes a plurality of data elements representing the configuration and state of the I/O module, and the data type includes a member name and a data format for each of the data elements.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the scanner is connected through a first network to the industrial controller and wherein the scanner is connected through a second network the I/O modules.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the scanner is operable to poll the I/O modules to collect at least a portion of the I/O data.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the I/O modules are operable to send at least a portion of the I/O data to the scanner.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the optimized connection packet comprises the I/O data associated with each of the modules concatenated in a predetermined order.

13. The industrial controller of claim 1, wherein the data type specifies member names and data formats for the I/O data associated with the I/O module.

14. The industrial controller of claim 1, wherein the I/O data for at least one of the I/O modules includes a plurality of data elements representing the configuration and state of the I/O module, and the data type includes a member name and a data format for each of the data elements.

15. An industrial controller operable to communicate using an optimized connection packet including all I/O data associated with all I/O modules associated with a single I/O network, wherein the I/O data is arranged as an unformatted concatenated data block, the industrial controller comprising:

a processing unit operable to access the I/O data within the optimized connection packet to control a process through executing a stored control program; and

a memory operable to store the control program including a plurality of cast tags, each cast tag being associated with I/O data for one of the I/O modules and providing a reference to a subset of the unformatted concatenated data block including at least a portion of the I/O data for the associated I/O module and imposing data types of the cast tag on the subset of the unformatted concatenated data block;

wherein the cast tags are data objects in the object-oriented language accessible within the stored control program defining the subsets of data in the unformatted concatenated data block that are related to the respective I/O modules by identifying a relative location within the data block data for a particular I/O module, a label for the data and a data type of the data and wherein the cast tags provide access to the subsets of data for the control program;

wherein data for a particular I/O module may be accessed from the optimized connection packet by a programmatic reference of the cast tag at the industrial controller without communicating this information in the optimized connection packet.

16. The industrial controller of claim 15, wherein the cast tags includes a first cast tag referencing an input portion of the I/O data and a second cast tag referencing an output portion of the I/O data for a particular I/O module.

17. The industrial controller of claim 15, wherein the I/O data comprises at least one of input data and output data.

18. The industrial controller of claim 15, wherein the optimized connection packet comprises the I/O data associated with each of the modules concatenated in a predetermined order.