Automation and control distributed data management systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10496067-B2
Application number	US-201514820780-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 7, 2015
Priority date	Aug 7, 2015
Publication date	Dec 3, 2019
Grant date	Dec 3, 2019

Abstract

A system for storing data in an industrial production environment includes a distributed database stored on a plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices. Each respective intelligent programmable logic controller device includes a volatile computer-readable storage medium containing a process image area; a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium; a control application; an input/output component; a historian component; and a distributed data management component. The control application is configured to provide operating instructions to a production unit. The input/output component is configured to update the process image area during each scan cycle with data associated with the production unit. The historian component is configured to store automation system data including the operating instructions and contents of the process image area on the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium. The distributed data management component is configured to facilitate distributed operations involving the automation system data by the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices.

First claim

We claim:

1. An industrial automation system for storing data in an industrial production environment, the system comprising:
a distributed data management system stored on a plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices, wherein each respective intelligent programmable logic controller device of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices comprises:
a volatile computer-readable storage medium comprising a process image area;
a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium;
a control application configured to provide operating instructions to a production unit of the industrial automation system;
an input/output component configured to update the process image area during each scan cycle of each respective intelligent programmable logic controller of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices with data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system;
a historian component configured to store automation system data comprising the operating instructions and contents of the process image area on the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium; and
a distributed data management component configured to facilitate distributed operations involving the automation system data by the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices, wherein the distributed data management component included in each respective intelligent programmable logic controller of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices is further configured to partition the automation system data into a plurality of data blocks prior to storing the automation system data on the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, wherein each respective intelligent programmable logic controller device of the plurality of inelegant programmable logic controller devices forms a respective data node in a distributed file system cluster arranged in a parallel processing framework to map parallel computing lobs to data nodes corresponding to the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices,
wherein at least one of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices further forms a name node in the distributed file system cluster,
wherein the parallel processing framework in the distributed file system cluster is configured to perform at least parallel distributed analytics on the automation system data stored by the historian component in each respective intelligent programmable logic controller device of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices, and effective to provide a consistent distributed historian view maintained through respective historian stacks at a node level.

2. The industrial automation system of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of data blocks is sized according to a predetermined time period.

3. The industrial automation system of claim 1 , wherein each respective intelligent programmable logic controller device further comprises:
a contextualization component configured to annotate the data associated with the production unit with automation system context information to generate contextualization data.

4. The industrial automation system of claim 3 , wherein the automation system data further comprises the contextualization data.

5. The industrial automation system of claim 1 , wherein the historian component included in each of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices is further configured to:
compress the automation system data prior to storing the contents on the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium.

6. The industrial automation system of claim 1 , wherein each respective intelligent programmable logic controller device comprises:
a sharding key definition providing a mapping between data stored in the distributed data management system and the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices.

7. The industrial automation system of claim 6 , further comprising:
a centralized server accessible to each of the plurality of intelligent programmable logic controller devices and configured to store the sharding key definition.

8. A method for storing data in an industrial production environment, the method comprising:
executing, by a first intelligent programmable logic controller, a control application configured to provide operating instructions to a production unit of an industrial automation system over a plurality of scan cycles of the first intelligent programmable logic controller;
updating, by the first intelligent programmable logic controller, a process image area during each of the plurality of scan cycles of the first intelligent programmable logic controller with data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system; and
inserting, by the first intelligent programmable logic controller, the data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system into a local non-volatile computer readable medium in the first intelligent programmable logic controller,
wherein the local non-volatile computer readable medium is part of a distributed storage system stored across the first intelligent programmable logic controller and a plurality of second intelligent programmable logic controllers,
wherein prior to inserting the data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system into the local non-volatile computer readable medium in the first intelligent programmable logic controller, partitioning the data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system into a plurality of data blocks,
wherein the first intelligent programmable logic controller and the plurality of second intelligent programmable logic controllers each forms a respective data node in a distributed file system cluster, and
arranging the distributed file system cluster in a parallel processing framework effective to map parallel computing jobs to data nodes corresponding to the first intelligent programmable logic controller and the plurality of second intelligent programmable logic controllers,
wherein the parallel processing framework in the distributed file system cluster is configured for performing at least parallel distributed analytics on automation system data stored in the distributed storage system, and effective for providing a consistent distributed historian view maintained through respective historian stacks at a node level.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein each of the plurality of data blocks is sized according to a predetermined time period.

10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
replicating storage of at least one of the plurality of data blocks on one or more of the plurality of second intelligent programmable logic controllers.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the local non-volatile computer readable medium on the first intelligent programmable logic controller comprises a NoSQL database which has a table equivalent view.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the insertion of the data associated with the production unit into the local non-volatile computer readable medium is triggered based on changes to the operating instructions and the data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the insertion of the data associated with the production unit of the industrial automation system into the local non-volatile computer readable medium is triggered based on a change to one or more monitored I/O flags.

14. An article of manufacture for operating an intelligent programmable logic cont

Assignees

• Siemens Ag

Inventors

• Lo George
• Ludwig Hartmut
• Rosca Justinian
• Bettenhausen Kurt Dirk

Classifications

• G05B19/052 Primary

  Linking several PLC's · CPC title

• G05B2219/1203

  Expand logical expression over multiple controllers · CPC title

• G05B2219/31324

  Distributed real time knowledge, database · CPC title

• G05B2219/1144

  Program, program I-O module · CPC title

• G05B2219/1204

  Multiprocessing, several plc's, distributed logic control · CPC title