Module structure and use for industrial control systems

• US 7,856,279 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Issued: 12/21/2010
• 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): DeCady; Albert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rapp; Chad
• Application Number:
  US11/536,715
• Publication Number:
  US 20080188956A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,544 Days
• Field of Search: 700/11, 700/17, 700/18, 700/19, 700/32, 700/83, 700/86, 717100-109, 719/315
• US Class Current: 700/19
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/0426 Programming the control sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/056 Programming the PLC
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/13063 Synchronization between modules
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/23389 Modular program, each process has corresponding program module

Abstract

A logical module for an industrial automation system is provided. This includes one or more resources to perform an action and a logic component to control a state of the resources. A module employs the resources and the logic component to expose functionality of the module while providing generic interfaces to external components of the module.

Claims

1. An industrial automation system, comprising:

at least one equipment resource control module, comprising;

a common interface that includes one or more attributes and input/output capabilities that are standard among a plurality of modules; and

logic of a first platform that controls a state of at least one equipment resource in the industrial automation system;

at least one material resource control module, comprising;

the common interface that includes one or more attributes and input/output capabilities that are standard among the plurality of modules; and

logic of a second platform that controls at least one component in the industrial automation system that manages at least one material resource; and

at least one resource module that coordinates the at least one equipment resource control module and the at least one material resource control module, wherein the at least one material resource control module is subordinate to the at least one equipment resource control module.

2. The system of claim 1, at least one of:

the at least one equipment resource control module, the at least one material control module or the at least one resource module is accessed across a network.

3. The system of claim 2, the network allows online and offline access to at least one of:

the at least one equipment resource control module, the at least one material resource control module or the at least one resource module.

4. The system of claim 1, the at least one equipment resource is an active resource and the at least one material resource is a passive resource.

5. The system of claim 1, the at least one equipment resource control module creates an instance of the at least one equipment resource.

6. The system of claim 5, the instance is an executable bound instance assigned to one or more computing resources.

7. The system of claim 5, the instance is a deployed instance bound to one or more computing resources and available for execution.

8. The system of claim 5, the instance is an activated instance bound to one or more computing resources and actively executing on the one or more computing resources.

9. The system of claim 1, the at least one resource module comprises a command interface that publishes one or more verbs that are available to external systems.

10. The system of claim 9, the command interface is an access point for real time diagnostics and security.

11. The system of claim 1, the one or more attributes include one or more alarm and event messages that are visible to external systems during execution of at least one of the at least one equipment resource control module or the at least one material resource control module.

12. The system of claim 1, the one or more attributes include one or more artifacts that include information that documents an operation or a structure of at least one of the at least one equipment resource control module or the at least one material resource control module.

13. The system of claim 1, the one or more attributes include one or more system messages that allow at least one of the at least one equipment resource control module or the material resource control module to listen for and publish data model messages to external components.

14. The system of claim 1, the state is classified by a common S88 state classification, including at least one of idle, hold, abort, run, reset, stop or restart.

15. A method for generating industrial control components, comprising:

defining a first module, comprising;

choosing one or more resources that perform one or more actions in an industrial automation system from a plurality of resources, wherein the plurality of resources includes at least two of an equipment resource, a material resource, a segment resource or a storage resource;

defining logic to control the one or more actions performed by the one or more resources; and

defining at least one standard interface for the module independent of a platform of the logic; and

associating the at least one standard interface with at least a second module;

deploying the first module, comprising binding the first module to at least one run time process that utilizes a hierarchical common data model.

16. The method of claim 15, deploying the first module comprises:

instantiating a module instance from a module template, wherein the module template comprises unbound required parameters; and

binding the unbound required parameters.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

establishing a reference link from the module instance to the module template;

creating a bound instance of the first module;

establishing a reference link from the bound instance to an original source template; and

constructing a new template from the bound instance of the first module.

18. An industrial automation system, comprising:

an equipment module, comprising logic of a first platform associated with one or more equipment resources that controls one or more actions performed by the one or more equipment resources and a standard interface for the equipment module independent of the first platform;

a material module that is subordinate to the equipment module, comprising logic of a second platform associated with one or more material handling resources, wherein the material module is associated with the equipment module via the standard interface;

wherein the equipment module manages at least one process in the industrial automation system by managing a state of the one or more equipment resources and leveraging the material module to represent material handling characteristics of the process,

wherein the equipment module is bound to the at least one process that utilizes a hierarchical common data model.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a segment module, subordinate to the equipment module, comprising logic associated with one or more segment resources.

20. The system of claim 19, the equipment module further manages the at least one process in the industrial automation system by leveraging the segment module to solicit an electronic signature.