Industrial design environment automation controller program conversion and export

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12566426-B2
Application number	US-202218060100-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 30, 2022
Priority date	Nov 30, 2022
Publication date	Mar 3, 2026
Grant date	Mar 3, 2026

Abstract

An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) supports decoupled development of industrial control programs without requiring the programs to be initially bound to a specific industrial controller. The IDE system allows industrial control programs to be defined as smart objects within an industrial control project. These smart objects can be created without an initial binding to an industrial controller, and can subsequently be assigned to selected industrial controllers after development of the control programs is complete, or while program development is in progress. The IDE system can export executable content allocated to a selected controller definition as a project file formatted to be compatible with a configuration application specific to the controller type of the selected controller definition.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system, 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 user interface component configured to render a project development interface and to receive, via interaction with the project development interface, design input that defines an industrial control program and controller definitions as part of an industrial control project, wherein the controller definitions represent respective industrial controllers;
a project generation component configured to
create, based on the design input as part of the industrial control project, a smart object definition that represents the industrial control program, and
allocate, in accordance with smart object allocation input received via interaction with the project development interface, multiple instances of the smart object definition to respective multiple controller definitions of the controller definitions; and

a project deployment component configured to, in response to receipt of an instruction to export executable content associated with a controller definition, of the multiple controller definitions, translate an instance, of the multiple instances, allocated to the controller definition to a project file capable of being opened, viewed, and edited in a controller configuration application specific to a type of industrial controller defined by the controller definition,
wherein execution of the project file on an industrial controller corresponding to the type configures the industrial controller to monitor and control an automation system in accordance with the industrial control program represented by the smart object definition.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the project file comprises a copy of control routines and data tag definitions defined by the smart object definition.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the project deployment component is further configured to assign a name to the project file based on a name of the smart object definition.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the project deployment component is further configured to assign metadata to the project file indicating at least one of a version number of the smart object definition from which the industrial control program was obtained, a name of a smart object library of the industrial control project in which the smart object definition is stored, or a portion of the smart object definition allocated to the controller definition.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein
I/O tags of the industrial control program are written to be agnostic with regard to controller I/O addresses, and the project generation component is configured to map, in the project file, the I/O tags of the industrial control program to available I/O addresses of the industrial controller represented by the controller definition to which the instance is allocated.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein
the project deployment component is configured to convert a program element defined by the instance of the smart object definition to an equivalent program element supported by the type of the industrial controller, and the program element is at least one of a data type or a program instruction.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the project generation component is further configured to, in response to receipt, via interaction with the project development interface, of an instruction to allocate an instance of a portion of the smart object definition less than an entirety of the smart object definition to the controller definition, allocate the instance of the portion of the smart object definition to the controller definition.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the project deployment component is configured to, in response to receipt of the instruction to export executable content associated with the controller definition, generate the project file to include a portion of the industrial control program represented by the portion of the smart object definition, wherein the portion of the industrial control program is less than an entirety of the industrial control program.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the project generation component is further configured to, in response to receiving a version of the project file comprising edits applied by the controller configuration application, update the smart object definition in accordance with the edits.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the project generation component is further configured to propagate the edits to one or more instances of the smart object definition that have been allocated to respective one or more of the controller definitions.

11 . A method, comprising:
receiving, by a system comprising a processor via interaction with a project development interface, control programming input that defines an industrial control program; defining, by the system as part of an industrial control project, a smart object definition representing the industrial control program based on the control programming input; receiving, by the system via interaction with the project development interface, controller definition input that defines properties of multiple industrial controllers; storing, by the system as part of the industrial control project, the controller definition input as controller definitions that respectively represent the multiple industrial controllers; assigning, in accordance with smart object allocation input received via interaction with the project development interface, multiple instances of the smart object definition to respective multiple controller definitions of the controller definitions; receiving, by the system, selection of a controller definition, of the multiple controller definitions, whose content is to be exported; and in response to the receiving of the selection, generating, by the system, a project file comprising the industrial control program defined by an instance, of the multiple instances, allocated to the controller definition, wherein the generating comprises generating the project file in a format capable of being opened, viewed, and edited in a controller configuration application compatible with a type of industrial controller defined by the controller definition, and execution of the project file on an industrial controller corresponding to the type configures the industrial controller to monitor and control an automation system in accordance with the industrial control program represented by the smart object definition.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the project file comprises a copy of control routines and data tag definitions defined by the smart object definition.

13 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the generating further comprises assigning a name to the project file based on a name of the smart object definition.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the generating further comprises assigning metadata to the project file indicating at least one of a version number of the smart object definition from which the industrial control program was obtained, a name of a smart object library of the industrial control project in which the smart object definition is stored, or a portion of the smart object definition allocated to the controller definition.

15 . The method of claim 11 , wherein
I/O tags of the industrial control program are written to be agnostic with regard to controller I/O addresses, and the generating further comprises mapping, in the project file, the I/O tags of the industrial control program to a

Assignees

• Rockwell Automation Tech Inc

Inventors

• Carrara Anthony
• Majewski Lorenzo P
• Stanek Christopher E

Classifications

• G05B19/0426

  Programming the control sequence · CPC title

• G06F8/60

  Software deployment · CPC title

• G06F8/24

  Object-oriented · CPC title

• G05B19/41835 Primary

  characterised by program execution · CPC title

• G06F8/36 Primary

  Software reuse · CPC title