Remote industrial monitoring using a cloud infrastructure

• US 9,467,500 B2
• Filed: 04/16/2013
• Issued: 10/11/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Maturana, Francisco, Asenjo, Juan L.
• Primary Examiner(s): KATSIKIS, KOSTAS J
• Application Number:
  US13/863,976
• Publication Number:
  US 20140047064A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,274 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/13 Plc programming
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2223/06 Remote monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0216 Human interface functionality, e.g. monitoring system providing help to the user in the selection of tests or in its configuration
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0221 Preprocessing measurements, e.g. data collection rate adjustment; Standardization of measurements; Time series or signal analysis, e.g. frequency analysis or wavelets; Trustworthiness of measurements; Indexes therefor; Measurements using easily measured parameters to estimate parameters difficult to measure; Virtual sensor creation; De-noising; Sensor fusion; Unconventional preprocessing inherently present in specific fault detection methods like PCA-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0264 Control of logging system, e.g. decision on which data to store; time-stamping measurements
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

A cloud-based infrastructure facilitates gathering, transmitting, and remote storage of control and automation data using an agent-based communication channel. The infrastructure collects the industrial data from an industrial enterprise and intelligently sorts and organizes the acquired data based on selected criteria. Message queues can be configured on the cloud platform to segregate the industrial data according to priority, data type, or other criteria. Behavior assemblies stored in customer-specific manifests on the cloud platform define customer-specific preferences for processing data stored in the respective message queues. Web-based tools can deliver automated notifications to an end user device based on analysis of the stored data, and allow the user to remotely view the stored data.

Claims

1. A system for providing industrial data to a cloud-based remote monitoring application, comprising:

a memory that stores executable components; and

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

a collection component configured to collect industrial data from one or more industrial devices and store the industrial data in compressed files;

a queue processing component configured to package the compressed files into respective data packets and assign the compressed files to selected message queues, of a set of message queues defined on a cloud platform, based on classifications of the respective data packets as one of time-series record data, real-time monitored data, or alarm data, wherein the data packets comprise headers that indicate the selected message queues, and wherein the set of message queues comprise at least a historical data queue for processing of the time-series record data, a live data queue for processing of the real-time monitored data, and an alarms queue for processing of the alarm data, the alarms queue having a highest processing priority of the set of message queues; and

a communication component configured to send the data packets to the cloud platform.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the queue processing component is further configured to determine the selected message queues based on a configuration file that defines associations between the message queues and at least one of a data type of the industrial data or a priority associated with the industrial data.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the executable components further comprise an interface component configured to receive input that assigns the priority to respective data tags that contain the industrial data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the queue processing service is further configured to upload behavior assembly data to the cloud platform, wherein the behavior assembly data defines at least one of processing preferences or storage preferences associated with the set of message queues.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the headers of the data packets respectively comprise fields for identifying one of the set of message queues and at least one of a customer identifier, a site identifier a virtual support engineer identifier, a data priority, a message type, or a process identifier.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the executable components further comprise a local analytics component configured to at least one of append contextual metadata to the industrial data, filter the industrial data, re-format the industrial data, combine subsets of the industrial data, summarize the industrial data, or compress the industrial data prior to sending the industrial data to the cloud platform.

7. A system for remotely monitoring industrial data using a cloud platform, comprising:

a memory that stores executable components; and

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

a queue management component configured to maintain data queues on a cloud platform, the data queues comprising at least a historical data queue for processing of time-series record data, a live data queue for processing of real-time monitored data, and an alarms queue for processing of alarm data, wherein the data queues are associated with respective processing priorities, and wherein the alarm queue is assigned a highest processing priority of the data queues; and

a receiving component configured to receive, at the cloud platform, data packets from a cloud agent device, wherein the data packets respectively comprise industrial data and a header for the industrial data, and the receiving component is further configured to classify the data packets, based on the header, according to time-series record data, real-time monitored data, and alarm data, and to assign the industrial data associated with the respective data packets to selected queues of the data queues based on classifications of the data packets.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the executable components further comprise a worker role component configured to process the data packets according to behavior assembly data associated with respective data queues of the data queues.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the worker role component is further configured to select a first cloud storage partition for storage of industrial data associated with one of the data queues based on the behavior assembly data.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the worker role component is further configured to process the industrial data according to the respective processing priorities, and wherein the respective processing priorities are defined by the behavior assembly data.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the executable components further comprise a manifest that maintains mapping information defining a mapping between behavior assembly data and data types.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the behavior assembly data comprises first behavior assembly data, and the receiving component is further configured to receive second behavior assembly data from the cloud agent device defining a processing preference for a data type, to create a new data queue corresponding to the second behavior assembly data in response to receipt of the second behavior assembly, and to store the second behavior assembly data in the manifest, wherein the processing preference comprises at least an upload frequency at which industrial data corresponding to the data type is to be uploaded from the cloud agent device to the receiving component.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the receiving component is further configured to at least one of create a second cloud storage partition for the data type or expand an existing cloud storage partition in accordance with the second behavior assembly data in response to receipt of the second behavior assembly data.

14. The system of claim 7, wherein the header includes a field that specifies one of the data queues and a field for at least one of a customer identifier, a site identifier a virtual support engineer identifier, a data priority, a message type, or a process identifier.

15. The system of claim 7, wherein the live data queue is assigned a higher processing priority than the historical data queue.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable components further comprise a notification component configured to send a notification directed to a client device based on a result of an analysis performed by the worker role component on at least a subset of the industrial data.

17. A method for storing and processing industrial data, comprising:

creating, by a system comprising at least one processor, a set of message queues on a cloud platform, wherein the set of message queues comprise at least a historical data queue for processing of time-series record data, a live data queue for processing of real-time monitored data, and an alarms queue for processing of alarm data;

associating, by the system, the set of message queues with respective processing priorities, wherein associating comprises assigning a highest processing priority to the alarm queue;

receiving, by the system at the cloud platform, data packets from a cloud agent device, wherein the data packets respectively comprise industrial data and a header for the industrial data;

classifying, by the system, the data packets based on the header, including classifying the data packets according to time-series record data, real-time monitored data, and alarm data; and

assigning, by the system, the industrial data associated with the respective data packets to selected message queues of the set of message queues in accordance with the classifying.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising processing, by the system, the data packets on the cloud platform based on behavior assembly data associated with the respective message queues.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising storing, by the system, at least a subset of the industrial data in a first cloud storage partition selected based on the behavior assembly data.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

receiving, by the system at the cloud platform, second behavior assembly data from the cloud agent device that defines a processing preference for a data type;

creating, by the system on the cloud platform, a new message queue corresponding to the second behavior assembly data in response to the receiving the second behavior assembly data; and

storing, by the system, the second behavior assembly data in a manifest that maintains mapping definitions that define respective mappings between behavior assembly data and data types.