Control environment change communication

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9529355-B2
Application number	US-201213662215-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 26, 2012
Priority date	Nov 11, 2011
Publication date	Dec 27, 2016
Grant date	Dec 27, 2016

Abstract

An automation control system is provided that includes a first component that stores state information of an object of the automation control system. Additionally, the first component generates one or more delta scripts that describe one or more changes of the stored state information. Further, the first component transmits the one or more delta scripts to one or more other components of the control system and the one or more other components apply the one or more delta scripts to update state information stored on the one or more other components based upon the one or more changes.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An automation control component, configured to:
detect, via a processor, an indication of one or more changes of state information of an object of an automation control system, the changes relating to a modification, addition, deletion, or combination thereof of the object;
create, via the processor, one or more delta scripts describing the one or more changes of state information of the object of the automation control system without providing an entire state of the object;
create, via the processor, one or more reverse delta scripts to reverse the one or more changes after plied via the one or more delta scripts;
detect, via the processor, a commit indication, indicating that that the one or more changes of state information of the object should be committed to one or more other automation control components of the automation control system; and
transmit, via the processor, the one or more delta scripts to the one or more other automation control components of the automation control system when the commit indication is detected, such that: pending changes by the one or more other automation control components may be committed and applied after the one or more changes of state information of the object of the automation control system are detected;
wherein when the pending changes are committed and applied before the commit indication is detected:
the pending changes are committed and applied to the state information of the object after reversing the one or more changes by applying the one or more reverse delta scripts; and
the one or more delta scripts describing the one or more changes of state information of the object of an automation control system are applied after the pending changes are committed and applied.

2. The automation control component of claim 1 , wherein the one or more other automation control components are configured to apply the one or more delta scripts to update state information stored on the one or more other automation control components based upon the one or more changes.

3. The automation control component of claim 1 , wherein the automation control component is configured to:
identify the one or more changes; and
create the one or more delta scripts based at least in part upon the identified one or more changes.

4. The automation control component of claim 1 , wherein the automation control component comprises at least one of a programming terminal, programmable logic controller, input/output (I/O) module, or human machine interface (HMI) terminal.

5. The automation control component of claim 1 , wherein the object comprises at least one of a control program, a tag, a module configuration, or an HMI screen.

6. The automation control component of claim 1 , configured to create and/or transmit delta scripts that may be interpreted independent of a particular programming technology.

7. The automation control component of claim 1 , configured to create and/or transmit delta scripts that selectively describe an object's full state information or only the object's state information that has been changed, based upon data processing and/or data communication efficiencies.

8. The automation control component of claim 1 , configured to create delta scripts that describe an object's full state information when a threshold amount of the full state information changes, and otherwise to create delta scripts that describe only the object's state information that has been changed.

9. The automation control component of claim 1 , comprising a persisted object model, wherein the persisted object model is configured to store the one or more changes while the one or more other automation control components are offline and communicate the changes via the delta scripts to the one or more other automation control components when they are back online.

10. The automation control component of claim 1 , configured to create and/or transmit delta scripts that comprise at least one of: an identifier of the object, an element of the object that has changed, data relating to the change of the element, or an attribute of an environment of the change.

11. The automation control component of claim 1 , configured to create and/or transmit delta scripts that comprise a revision number, such that one or more components that are configured to apply the one or more delta scripts may authenticate whether the one or more delta scripts should be applied to a local copy of the object's state based on a comparison of a current revision number of the local copy with the revision number of the one or more delta scripts.

12. The automation control component of claim 1 , wherein the one or more delta scripts comprise a unique identifier useful to distinguish different revisions to the stored state information.

13. An automation control component, configured to:
receive, via a processor, a first set of one or more delta scripts comprising first data that describes a first set of one or more changes of state information of an object of an automation control system, wherein the changes relate to a modification, addition, and/or deletion of the object that have been determined as committed based upon a first commit indication provided via a first instrument of change, the first commit indication indicating that the first set of one or more changes of state information should be committed to the automation control component;
receive, via an alternative processor, a second set of one or more delta scripts, the second set of one or more delta scripts comprising second data that describes a second set of one or more changes of state information of the object of the automation control system, wherein the changes relate to a second modification, addition, deletion, or any combination thereof of the object that have been determined as committed based upon a second commit indication provided via a second instrument of change, the second commit indication indicating that the second set of one or more changes of state information should be committed to the automation control component, wherein the first set of one or more changes of state information may occur concurrently with the second set of one or more changes of state information;
extract the first data describing the first set of one or more changes and the second data describing the second set of one more changes from the first set of one or more delta scripts and the second set of one or more delta scripts; and
determine a state of the object, based at least in part upon the extracted first data, the extracted second data, and an order that the first commit indication and the second commit indication is received, by:
when the order indicates that the first commit indication was first, apply the extracted first data to the state of the object first and then apply the extracted second data to the state of the object, after the extracted first data has been applied to the state of the object; and
when the order indicates that the second commit indication was first, but the first data was applied first, apply one or more reverse delta scripts to reverse changes made by the first data and then apply the extracted second data to the state of the object and then re-apply the extracted first data to the state of the object, after the extracted second data has been applied to the state of the object.

14. The automation control system of claim 13 , configured to:
extract an identifier of a user that generated the one or more changes from the delta scripts; and
authenticate a source of the change based upon the identifier.

15. The automation control component

Assignees

• Rockwell Automation Tech Inc

Inventors

• Reid Douglas W
• Bronikowski Joseph
• Govindaraj Subbian
• Jasper Taryl
• Kalan Michael
• Kowal Steven John
• Plache Kenneth
• Reichard Douglas J
• Rischar Charles
• Stanek Christopher E

Classifications

• G05B19/054

  Input/output · CPC title

• G05B2219/25057

  Configuration stored in distributed database for real time use · CPC title

• G05B19/41845 Primary

  characterised by system universality, reconfigurability, modularity · CPC title

• Y02P90/10

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• Y02P90/16

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic