Contextualization of industrial data at the device level

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11435726-B2
Application number	US-201916587214-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2019
Priority date	Sep 30, 2019
Publication date	Sep 6, 2022
Grant date	Sep 6, 2022

Abstract

An industrial device supports device-level data modeling that pre-models data stored in the device with known relationships, correlations, key variable identifiers, and other such metadata to assist higher-level analytic systems to more quickly and accurately converge to actionable insights relative to a defined business or analytic objective. Data at the device level can be modeled according to modeling templates stored on the device that define relationships between items of device data for respective analytic goals (e.g., improvement of product quality, maximizing product throughput, optimizing energy consumption, etc.). This device-level modeling data can be provided to higher level systems together with their corresponding data tag values to high level analytic systems, which discovers insights into an industrial process or machine based on analysis of the data and its modeling data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An industrial device, 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 program execution component that execute an industrial control program, wherein the industrial control program reads data values from and writes data values to data tags stored on the memory, and at least a subset of the data tags comprise smart tags having associated contextualization metadata;
a smart tag configuration component that set the contextualization metadata associated with the smart tags, wherein the contextualization metadata defines correlations between the smart tags relevant to a defined business objective to yield a device-level data model; and
a data publishing component that communicate data values and the contextualization metadata corresponding to the smart tags to an industrial data analytic system configured to analyze the data values and the contextualization metadata to yield an insight relating to the business objective.

2. The industrial device of claim 1 , wherein the smart tag configuration component is to set the contextualization metadata for the smart tags based on one or more data modeling templates stored on the memory, and the one or more data modeling templates identify one or more of the smart tags representing key variables relevant to respective business objectives and correlations between the smart tags relevant to the respective business objectives.

3. The industrial device of claim 2 , wherein the one or more templates are classified according to at least one of an industrial vertical, a machine type, or a type of industrial application.

4. The industrial device of claim 1 , wherein the business objective is at least one of maximization of product output, minimization of machine downtime, minimization of machine faults, optimization of energy consumption, prediction of machine downtime events, determination of a cause of a machine downtime, maximization of product quality, minimization of emissions, identification of factors that yield maximum product quality, identification of factors that yield maximum product output, or identification of factors that yield minimal machine downtime.

5. The industrial device of claim 1 , further comprising a user interface component to receive custom metadata defining user-specified correlations between selected subsets of the smart tags, wherein the smart tag configuration component is further to update the contextualization metadata associated with the subsets of the smart tags in accordance with the custom metadata.

6. The industrial device of claim 1 , wherein the industrial data analytic system is to analyze the data values and the contextualization metadata using at least one of data analytics, artificial intelligence, or machine learning.

7. The industrial device of claim 1 , wherein the smart tag configuration component is further to update the contextual metadata in accordance with a discovered data correlation discovered by the industrial data analytic system.

8. The industrial device of claim 7 , wherein the industrial data analytic system discovers the discovered data correlation using at least one of supervised learning or unsupervised learning.

9. The industrial device of claim 1 , wherein
the device-level model is discoverable by the industrial data analytic system for integration into an analytic model.

10. The industrial device of claim 1 , wherein the contextualization metadata for one or more of the smart tags comprises an artificial intelligence field defining a type of analysis to be performed by the industrial data analytic system on the data values corresponding to the smart tags.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the smart tags are associated with respective labels indicating respective analytic topics to which the data values associated with the smart tags are relevant, and the data publishing component is to send the data values, the contextualization data, and the labels to an industrial data broker system that publishes the data values and the contextualization data according to the analytic topics.

12. A method, comprising:
executing, by an industrial device comprising a processor, an industrial control program, wherein the industrial control program reads data values from and writes data values to data tags stored in a memory, and wherein at least a subset of the data tags comprise smart tags having associated contextualization metadata;
setting, by the industrial device, the contextualization metadata associated with the smart tags, wherein the contextualization metadata defines correlations between the smart tags relevant to a defined business objective to yield a device-level data model; and
sending, by the industrial device, data values and the contextualization metadata corresponding to the smart tags to an industrial data analytic system configured to analyze the data values and the contextualization metadata to yield an insight relating to the defined business objective.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein
the setting the contextual metadata comprises setting the contextualization metadata for the smart tags based on one or more data modeling templates stored on the industrial device, and
the one or more data modeling templates identify one or more of the smart tags that represent key variables relevant to respective business objectives and correlations between the smart tags relevant to the respective business objectives.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising classifying, by the industrial device, the one or more templates according to at least one of an industrial vertical, a machine type, or a type of industrial application.

15. The method of claim 12 , wherein the business objective is at least one of maximization of product output, minimization of machine downtime, minimization of machine faults, optimization of energy consumption, prediction of machine downtime events, determination of a cause of a machine downtime, maximization of product quality, minimization of emissions, identification of factors that yield maximum product quality, identification of factors that yield maximum product output, or identification of factors that yield minimal machine downtime.

16. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
receiving, by the industrial device, custom metadata defining user-specified correlations between selected subsets of the smart tags; and
updating, by the industrial device, the contextualization metadata associated with the subsets of the smart tags in accordance with the custom metadata.

17. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
receiving, by the industrial device from the industrial data analytic system, an update to the contextual metadata based on a correlation discovered by the industrial data analytic system; and
updating, by the industrial device, the contextual metadata in accordance with the correlation based on the update.

18. The method of claim 12 , further comprising assigning, by the industrial device, labels to the smart tags indicating respective analytic topics to which the data values associated with the smart tags are relevant,
wherein the sending comprises sending the data values, the contextualization data, and the labels to an industrial data broker system that publishes the data values and the contextualization data according to the analytic topics.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions tha

Assignees

• Rockwell Automation Tech Inc

Inventors

• Sayyarrodsari Bijan
• Pantaleano Michael
• Lin Ka H
• Weinhofer Juergen K
• Ellis Andrew J
• Crum Kyle
• Chand Sujeet
• Vasko David
• Govindaraj Subbian

Classifications

• G06F18/24

  Classification techniques · CPC title

• G06F18/23

  Clustering techniques · CPC title

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• G06Q10/063 Primary

  Operations research, analysis or management · CPC title

• G06Q10/0637

  Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals · CPC title