Direct subscription to intelligent I/O module

• US 7,917,857 B2
• Filed: 09/26/2007
• Issued: 03/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Rockwell Automation, Inc.)
• Inventors: Palmieri, Frank Anthony Jr., Baier, John J., Campbell, John T., McGreevy, Robert J., Herbst, Robert J., Jasper, Taryl J.
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, CAO H
• Application Number:
  US11/862,182
• Publication Number:
  US 20090083648A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,280 Days
• Field of Search: 715751-753, 715761-765, 715740-744, 715851-853
• US Class Current: 715/761
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/544 Remote
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

Systems and methods that supply direct access (e.g., bypassing the controller) to embedded historian via a subscription and notification component. By modeling the notification related information (e.g., subscription queries, subscriber information, event information . . . ) as data and leveraging the power of database systems to perform set-oriented manipulations on this data efficiently, the subject innovation enables for a highly scalable and efficient subscription and notification system for direct access to the historians.

Claims

1. A system for collecting and supplying data, comprising:

a plurality of embedded historians configured to reside in a respective plurality of I/O modules associated with an industrial enterprise, to collect at least one of input data or output data associated with the plurality of I/O modules, and to store the at least one of the input data or the output data in one or more I/O tables associated with the respective plurality of I/O modules; and

a subscription and notification component configured to provide at least one subscriber a direct access to the at least one of the input data or the output data collected by at least one of the plurality of embedded historians, wherein the subscription and notification component is further configured to deliver at least a portion of the at least one of the input data or the output data from the one or more I/O tables to the at least one subscriber.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an organizational data model representing at least a portion of the industrial enterprise having nodes that represent units associated with the industrial enterprise, wherein the organizational data model is distributed among at least two devices comprising the industrial enterprise and exposes functionality of at least one of the plurality of embedded historians to at least one other system component associated with the organizational data model.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising a locator component operatively connected to a directory service to facilitate discovery of at least one of the plurality of embedded historians.

4. The system of claim 3, further comprising an artificial intelligence component that facilitates identification of data collected by the plurality of embedded historians.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the organizational data model employs metadata for identification of at least one of the plurality of embedded historians to the locator component.

6. The system of claim 3, further comprising a publish component that identifies at least one of the plurality of embedded historians to the locator component.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the locator component is configured to receive specification of a data type to be provided to the at least one subscriber and to locate a subset of the plurality of embedded historians having data that accords to the data type.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a graphical user interface (GUI) that forms an application view of the plurality of embedded historians.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the embedded historians are associated with at least one of a controller, a module in a chassis, a server, a sensor, or a factory component.

10. A method of supplying historian data via embedded historians within an industrial plant comprising:

employing one or more processors executing computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium to implement to following acts;

collecting data associated with the industrial plant via a plurality of embedded historians incorporated within a respective plurality of I/O modules;

receiving specification of a data type requested by a subscriber;

identifying one or more of the plurality of embedded historians that collect data that accords to the data type based at least in part on metadata associated with the plurality of embedded historians; and

supplying the subscriber with direct access to the data that accords to the data type collected by the one or more of the plurality of embedded historians.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

defining a common organizational data model for of the industrial plant;

distributing the common organizational data model across at least two components comprising the industrial plant; and

employing the common organizational model to expose at least a portion of the data associated with the industrial plant to the plurality of embedded historians.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising collecting historian data across multiple levels of the industrial plant using the plurality of embedded historians.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising employing a directory to locate at least one of the plurality of embedded historians within the industrial plant.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising employing a polling mechanism for embedded historian detection and identification.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the receiving the specification of the data type comprises receiving specification of a delivery mode for providing the data that accords to the data type to the subscriber.

16. An I/O module for use with an industrial controller, comprising:

at least one embedded historian configured to collect at least one of input data or output data associated with the I/O module;

an I/O table configured to store the at least one of the input data or the output data associated with the I/O module; and

a subscription and notification component configured to deliver at least a subset of the at least one of the input data or the output data from the I/O table to an entity subscribed to receive data from the I/O module, wherein the subscription and notification component is configured to select the at least a subset of the at least one of the input data or the output data for delivery to the entity based at least in part on a requested data type specified in a subscription.