Industrial process control system as a data center of an industrial process plant

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12190216-B2
Application number	US-202318515927-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 21, 2023
Priority date	Oct 22, 2020
Publication date	Jan 7, 2025
Grant date	Jan 7, 2025

Abstract

A distributed control system (DCS) of an industrial process plant includes a data center storing a plant information model that includes a description of physical components, the control framework, and the control network of the plant using a modeling language. A set of exposed APIs provides DCS applications access to the model, and to an optional generic framework of the data center which stores basic structures and functions from which the DCS may automatically generate other structures and functions to populate the model and to automatically create various applications and routines utilized during run-time operations of the DCS and plant. Upon initialization, the DCS may automatically sense the I/O types of its interface ports, detect communicatively connected physical components within the plant, and automatically populate the plant information model accordingly. The DCS may optionally automatically generate related control routines and/or I/O data delivery mechanisms, HMI routines, and the like.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. An industrial distributed process control system (DCS) of an industrial process plant, the industrial DCS comprising:
one or more processors;
one or more tangible, non-transitory memories; and
a discovery engine comprising first computer-executable instructions that are stored on the one or more tangible, non-transitory memories and that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause each module of a plurality of modules of the industrial DCS to populate a respective at least a portion of a plant information model,
the population of the respective at least the portion of the plant information model based on a discovery, by the each module, of respective communicative connections of one or more components of the industrial DCS to the first module, and
the plant information model including a description of a control framework of the industrial process plant and a description of a control network of the industrial process plant utilized to control the industrial process during run-time operations of the industrial process plant; and

an execution engine comprising second computer-executable instructions that are stored on the one or more tangible, non-transitory memories and that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the industrial DCS to execute, via the each module and based on the populated at least the portion of the plant information model, a control routine to thereby deliver data between the control routine and a field device to thereby control an industrial process during run-time operations of the industrial process plant, the control routine and the field device included in the control network.

2. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , wherein the one or more components include at least one of: an Input/Output (I/O) port, an I/O port type, a field device, another physical device or physical equipment disposed a field environment of the industrial process plant, a process controller, a safety controller, a control routine, a networking device, another module, or a connection of a component.

3. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , further comprising additional computer-executable instructions that are stored on the tangible, non-transitory memories and that are executable by the one or more processors to cause the industrial DCS to:
generate, responsive to the discovery of the respective communicative connections of the one or more components, at least one of: the control routine or another control routine;
instantiate the at least one of the control routine or the another control routine into a respective control container; and
allocate the instantiated, respective control container to one or more compute modules of the industrial DCS for execution during the run-time operations of the industrial process plant.

4. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , further comprising additional computer-executable instructions that are stored on the tangible, non-transitory memories and that are executable by the one or more processors to cause the industrial DCS to:
generate, responsive to the discovery of the one or more components, an Input/Output (I/O) data delivery mechanism;
instantiate the I/O data delivery mechanism into a respective I/O container; and
allocate the respective I/O container to one or more compute modules of the industrial DCS for execution during the run-time operations of the industrial process plant.

5. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , further comprising additional computer-executable instructions that are stored on the tangible, non-transitory memories and that are executable by the one or more processors to cause the industrial DCS to:
generate, responsive to the discovery of the one or more components, Human Machine Interface (HMI) functionality of the industrial DCS;
instantiate the HMI functionality into a respective HMI container; and
allocate the respective HMI container to one or more compute modules of the industrial DCS for execution during run-time operations of the industrial process plant.

6. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of modules includes a hardware module of the industrial DCS.

7. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , wherein the control framework defines respective logical control identifiers of control components of the DCS and hierarchical relationships among the control components, and the control components include the field device and the control routine.

8. The industrial DCS of claim 1 ,
further comprising a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that are exposed to a plurality of applications of the industrial DCS to thereby provide the plurality of applications access to the plant information model and to secure contents of the plant information model; and
wherein the plurality of applications includes the control routine and at least one of: another control routine application, an I/O data delivery application, a Human Machine Interface (HMI) application, a support function application, or an application associated with a third-party.

9. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , wherein the discovery engine automatically discovers or detects the one or more components, and the population of the respective at least the portion of the plant information model is responsive to the automatic discovery.

10. The industrial DCS of claim 1 , further comprising a packet network interconnecting a field environment of the industrial DCS and a cloud computing component of the DCS, and wherein the field device is disposed in the field environment and the control routine executes in the cloud computing component.

11. A method performed by an industrial distributed process control system (DCS) of an industrial process plant, the method comprising:
discovering, by a first module executing in the industrial DCS, respective communicative connections of one or more components of the industrial DCS to the first module;
responsive to the discovering, populating, by the first module, at least a portion of a plant information model, the plant information model including a description of a control framework of the industrial process plant and a description of a control network of the network of the industrial process plant utilized to control the industrial process during run-time operations of the industrial process plant; and
utilizing the first module and a second module to execute, based on the populated at least the portion of the plant information model, a control routine included in the control network to thereby deliver-data between a field device and the control routine, thereby controlling an industrial process during run-time operations of the industrial process plant.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the discovering, by the first module, of the respective communicative connections of the one or more components to the first module includes automatically detecting, by the first module, the respective communicative connections of the one or more components to the first module; and
the one or more components include at least one of: an Input/Output (I/O) port, an I/O port type, a field device, another physical device or physical equipment disposed a field environment of the industrial process plant, a process controller, a safety controller, a control routine, a networking device, another module, or a connection of a component.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
automatically generating, by the industrial DCS and by utilizing the plant information model, one or more applications utilized by the industrial DCS;
instantiating the one or more applications into respective containers; and
assigning each application of the one or more instantiated applica

Assignees

• Fisher Rosemount Systems Inc

Inventors

• Nixon Mark J
• Fayad Claudio
• Halgren Iii Robert G
• Amaro Jr Anthony
• Hartmann Peter
• Schleiss Trevor Duncan
• Natarajan Seshatre

Classifications

• G05B19/042

  using digital processors (G05B19/05 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G05B19/41885 Primary

  characterised by modeling, simulation of the manufacturing system · CPC title

• G06F13/38 Primary

  Information transfer, e.g. on bus (G06F13/14 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G05B2219/31449

  Monitor workflow, to optimize business, industrial processes · CPC title

• G06F2213/40

  Bus coupling · CPC title