Data federation with industrial control systems

• US 8,484,250 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Issued: 07/09/2013
• 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: Chand, Sujeet, Briant, Stephen C., Hall, Kenwood H., Hood, Gavan W., Baier, John J., Kalan, Michael D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ehichioya, Fred I
• Assistant Examiner(s): SMITH, GARRETT A
• Application Number:
  US11/239,937
• Publication Number:
  US 20070078862A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,839 Days
• US Class Current: 707/794
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4188 characterised by CIM planning or realisation
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31393 Object oriented engineering data management
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31395 Process management, specification, process and production data, middle level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/282 Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

An organizational model of a hierarchical system can be distributed across various elements of an enterprise. Such elements include representations of the system that are maintained on higher-level business servers and other representations that serve control elements of the system such as programmable logic controllers and/or other industrial control components. In one aspect, an industrial automation system is provided. The system includes at least one controller to instantiate a portion of an organizational hierarchy. A communications component in the controller interacts with at least one other portion of the organizational hierarchy to facilitate data exchange and control between various components of an enterprise.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates data federation in an industrial system, comprising:

a processor, coupled to a memory, that executes computer-executable components, the computer-executable components comprising;

a configuration component configured to receive first configuration input that creates a first subset of a hierarchical data model of an industrial organization in an industrial controller, second configuration input that defines a second portion of the hierarchical data model in a device different than the industrial controller, and third configuration input that defines a mount point in the industrial controller,

wherein the first subset of the hierarchical data model comprises a first set of nodes defining first hierarchical relationships between first entities on a control level of the industrial organization,

wherein the second subset of the hierarchical data model comprises a second set of nodes defining second hierarchical relationships between second entities on an enterprise level of the industrial organization that is hierarchically higher than the control level; and

wherein the mount point defines a location in the hierarchical data model where the first subset of the hierarchical data model connects to the second subset of the hierarchical data model and facilitates aggregation of the first portion of the hierarchical data model and the second portion of the hierarchical data model at the location.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical data model conforms to a user-defined hierarchy.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the first subset of the hierarchical data model is stored in a runtime instantiation of the industrial controller accessible via a communications layer of on operating environment of the industrial controller.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical data model comprises one or more organizational units that are distributed among the device and the industrial controller.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical data model comprises one or more organizational units representing one or more physical locations or one or more logical groupings of nodes.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the first set of nodes are associated with respective data items maintained within the industrial controller.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical data model is distributed across multiple components of the industrial organization residing on at least one of a local network, a factory network, a remote network, or a wide area network.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical data model conforms to at least one of an S88 model or an S95 model.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the hierarchical data model includes at least a line level that comprises at least one of an equipment component, a control component, a production component, a segment component, or a miscellaneous component.

10. The system of claim 1, the computer-executable components further comprising a controller component configured to at least one of convert a flat data structure to a hierarchical data structure or convert the hierarchical data structure to the flat data structure.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical data model further comprises at least one of one or more controller scoped tags, one or more programs with associated program scoped tags, one or more add-on instructions, one or more control routines, one or more operator interfaces, or user defined information.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the mount point defines a location in the hierarchical data model below which the industrial controller is responsible for maintaining data.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the third configuration input associates the mount point with the location in the hierarchical data model during a configuration operation that associates the industrial controller with a hierarchical project.

14. The system of claim 1, the computer-executable components further comprising a communications component configured to facilitate presentation of data items in the industrial controller on an application that is external to the industrial controller using a hierarchical namespace that accords to the hierarchical data model.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the first entities and the second entities comprise at least one of control equipment, one or more controller tags, one or more backing tags, one or more programs, one or more equipment phases, or one or more I/O devices.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the configuration component is further configured to receive fourth configuration data that sets a tag associated with the hierarchical data model as one of public or private, wherein setting the tag as public renders the tag viewable from an application that reads data from the industrial controller.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, in response to execution by a computing system including a processor, cause the computing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:

creating, in response to first configuration input, a controller data structure comprising a first portion of a hierarchical data model of an industrial organization, wherein the first portion of the hierarchical data model is maintained in a controller and comprises one or more first nodes defining hierarchical relationships between a first set of entities on a control level of the industrial organization;

creating, in response to second configuration input, an enterprise data structure comprising a second portion of the hierarchical data model, wherein the second portion of the hierarchical data model is maintained in a device that is different than the controller and comprises one or more second nodes defining hierarchical relationships between a second set of entities on an enterprise level of the industrial organization that is hierarchically higher than the control level;

defining, in response to third configuration input, a mount point in the controller that defines a location within the hierarchical data structure at which the first portion of the hierarchical data structure connects to the second portion of the hierarchical data structure; and

aggregating the first portion of the hierarchical data structure and the second portion of the hierarchical data structure based on the mount point.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more first nodes represent entities associated with the controller including at least one of control equipment, one or more controller tags, one or more backing tags, one or more programs, one or more equipment phases, or one or more I/O devices.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, the operations further comprising storing the controller data structure in a runtime instantiation accessible via a communications layer of the controller'"'"'s operating environment.

25. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising rendering, at a display interface that communicates with the controller data structure and the enterprise data structure, first data items maintained in the controller and second data items maintained in the device in a hierarchical manner as defined by the hierarchical data model.

20. A method for data communication, comprising:

defining, in a controller comprising a processor, a first portion of a hierarchical data model of an industrial organization, wherein the first portion of the hierarchical data model comprises one or more first nodes that define first hierarchical relationships between first entities of a control layer of an organizational hierarchy;

defining, in a first network node that is different than the controller, a second portion of the hierarchical data model, wherein the second portion of the hierarchical data model comprises one or more second nodes that define second hierarchical relationships between second entities of an enterprise layer of the organizational hierarchy, wherein the enterprise layer is hierarchically higher than the control layer;

defining, in the controller, a mount point that identifies a location within the hierarchical data model at which the first portion of the hierarchical data model connects to the second portion of the hierarchical data model; and

aggregating the first portion of the hierarchical data model and the second portion of the hierarchical data model based on the mount point.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising selectively assigning one of a public data property or a private data property to a data object of the controller via the hierarchical data model.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising rendering a hierarchical view of the hierarchical data model, wherein the rendering comprises combining nodes defined by the hierarchical data model having similar names and residing in different devices.

23. The method of claim 20, further comprising rendering a hierarchical view of the hierarchical data model, wherein the rendering comprises rendering organizational units comprising the first portion of the hierarchical data model and the second portion of the hierarchical data model.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein the defining the first portion of the hierarchical data model comprises defining the first nodes to represent at least one of control equipment, one or more controller tags, one or more controller programs, one or more equipment phases, or one or more I/O devices.

26. The method of claim 20, further comprising rendering a hierarchical view of data objects on the controller and the first network node on a second network node, wherein the hierarchical view is based on the hierarchical data model derived by the aggregating.