System and Method of Communicating Data Over High Availability Industrial Control Systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020033840-A1
Application number	US-201916277285-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 15, 2019
Priority date	Jul 27, 2018
Publication date	Jan 30, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system of communicating data over a high availability industrial control system is disclosed. The industrial control system includes a first data producer, a second data producer in communicative connection with the first data producer, a first data consumer, and a second data consumer in communicative connection with the first data consumer. The system further includes the first producer communicating the data over multiple connection paths from the first producer to the first consumer and the second consumer through intermediate modules, and the second producer communicating the data over multiple connection paths from the second producer to the first consumer and the second consumer through intermediate modules. Also disclosed is a method of communicating data over the high availability industrial control system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system of communicating data over a high availability industrial control network, the system comprising:
a first producer operative to generate a first data packet for transmission, wherein the first data packet includes a unique identifier defining a connection for communication in the system; a second producer operative to generate a second data packet for transmission, wherein the second data packet includes the unique identifier and the second data packet is transmitted concurrently with the first data packet; and a first consumer operative to:
receive one of the first data packet and the second data packet first,
receive one of the first data packet and the second data packet second,
extract data from one of the first and second data packet which was received first,
transmit the data extracted from one of the first and second data packet to a control circuit within the first consumer,
identify one of the first and second data packet which was received second as redundant as a function of the unique identifier, and
disregard data from one of the first and second data packet identified as redundant.

2 . The system of claim 1 further comprising:
a first connection path from the first producer to the first consumer; and
a second connection path from the second producer to the first consumer, wherein the second connection path is open for communication concurrent with the first connection path and the second connection path is different than the first connection path.

3 . The system of claim 2 further comprising at least one intermediate module located in the first connection path between the first producer and the first consumer, wherein the first connection path is defined on a per hop basis between the first producer, the at least one intermediate module, and the first consumer.

4 . The system of claim 2 wherein:
the first producer generates a first set of data to be transmitted,
the second producer generates a second set of data to be transmitted,
the first and second producers agree on a set of data for transmission from one of the first and second sets of data.

5 . The system of claim 4 wherein at least one of the first producer and the second producer assign a data sequence number to the set of data for transmission and wherein the first consumer is further operative to identify one of the first and second data packet as redundant as a function of the unique identifier and of the data sequence number.

6 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a second consumer operative to:
receive one of the first data packet and the second data packet first, receive one of the first data packet and the second data packet second, extract data from one of the first and second data packet which was received first, transmit the data extracted from one of the first and second data packet to a control circuit within the second consumer, identify one of the first and second data packet which was received second as redundant as a function of the unique identifier, and disregard the data from one of the first and second data packet identified as redundant.

7 . The system of claim 6 wherein at least one of the first consumer and the second consumer compares the data extracted by the first consumer to the data extracted by the second consumer and the data extracted by each producer is transmitted to the respective control circuit when the data extracted by the first consumer matches the data extracted by the second consumer.

8 . A method of communicating data over a high availability industrial control network, comprising the steps of:
generating a first data packet for transmission with a first producer, wherein the first data packet includes a unique identifier defining a connection; generating a second data packet for transmission with a second producer, wherein the second data packet includes the unique identifier; transmitting both the first data packet from the first producer and the second data packet from the second producer to a first consumer concurrently; receiving one of the first data packet and the second data packet first at the first consumer; receiving one of the first data packet and the second data packet second at the first consumer; extracting data from one of the first and second data packet which was received first with the first consumer; identifying with the first consumer one of the first and second data packets which was received second as redundant as a function of the unique identifier, and disregarding data from one of the first and second data packets identified as redundant with the first consumer.

9 . The method of claim 8 wherein:
the first data packet is transferred via a first connection path from the first producer to the first consumer,
the second data packet is transferred via a second connection path from the second producer to the first consumer, and
the first connection path is different than the second connection path.

10 . The method of claim 9 wherein the step of transmitting the first data packet from the first producer to the first consumer further includes transmitting the first data packet from the first producer to at least one intermediate module on a per hop basis.

11 . The method of claim 10 wherein the step of transmitting the second data packet from the second producer to the first consumer further includes transmitting the second data packet from the second producer to at least one additional intermediate module on a per hop basis.

12 . The method of claim 8 wherein the first data packet includes a first set of data generated by the first producer and the second data packet includes a second set of data generated by the second producer and the method further comprises the step of agreeing on a set of data for transmission by the first and second producer, wherein the set of data for transmission is selected from the first and second sets of data.

13 . The method of claim 12 further comprising the step of assigning a data sequence number to the set of data for transmission wherein the first consumer further identifies one of the first and second data packets as redundant as a function of the data sequence number.

14 . The method of claim 8 further comprising the steps of:
transmitting both the first data packet from the first producer and the second data packet from the second producer to a second consumer concurrently with transmitting the data packets to the first consumer;
receiving one of the first data packet and the second data packet first at the second consumer;
receiving one of the first data packet and the second data packet second at the second consumer;
extracting data from one of the first and second data packet which was received first with the second consumer;
identifying with the second consumer one of the first and second data packets which was received second as redundant as a function of the unique identifier; and
disregarding data from one of the first and second data packets identified as redundant with the second consumer.

15 . The method of claim 14 further comprising the steps of:
comparing the data extracted by the first consumer to the data extracted by the second consumer, wherein the comparing is performed by at least one of the first consumer and the second consumer, and
transmitting the extracted data to a first control circuit in the first consumer and to a second control circuit in the second consumer when the data extracted by the first consumer matches the data extracted by the second consumer.

16 .

Assignees

• Rockwell Automation Tech Inc

Inventors

• Balasubramanian Sivaram
• Harris Kendal R
• Flood Mark A
• Neet Kyle E
• Pierce Scott A
• Gibart Anthony G
• Husted Raymond R
• Fort David M
• Chaudhari Chandresh R
• Bradford Jonathan D

Classifications

• G05B2219/25257

  Microcontroller · CPC title

• G05B19/0423 Primary

  Input/output · CPC title

• G05B9/03 Primary

  with multiple-channel loop, i.e. redundant control systems · CPC title

• G05B19/4186 Primary

  by protocol, e.g. MAP, TOP · CPC title

• H04L12/40176

  involving redundancy (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking in interconnections G06F11/2002; error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking in storage systems using spares or by reconfiguring G06F11/2053) · CPC title