Abb Schweiz Ag

Dirk Schulz

Mario Hoernicke

Katharina Stark

Raoul Jetley

Heiko Koziolek

Thomas Gamer

Sten Gruener

Roland Braun

Stefan Bollmeyer

Thomas Goldschmidt

Soeren Finster

Andreas Burger

Divyasheel Sharma

Francisco Mendoza

Vadthyavath Ramu

Markus Ruppert

Jan Christoph Schlake

Abdulla Puthan Peedikayil

Alexander Kaiser

Francisco Mendoza Cervantes

Dirk Dr-Ing John

Daniel Dr-Ing Grossmann

Benjamin Dr-Ing Danzer

A method for creating a configuration of a communication network, which includes networking and automation devices with embedded networking functions, the automation devices comprising communication endpoints providing and/or consuming application data of attached automation application functions running on the automation devices. The method includes communicating information about application functions and intents, receiving and resolving, by determining physical or virtual devices according to the network topology, to obtain identities and addresses of the communication endpoints; receiving timing information and further QoS requirements, and binding, taking into account the timing information and the further QoS requirements; creating qualified connectivity requests for the communication between the identifiable and addressable communication endpoints, and obtaining configuration information according to which the process network can be configured.

Computer implemented method for configuring a process network

A method for orchestrating use of a communications network for conveying a plurality of data streams transmitted by a plurality of applications includes attributing levels of importance to individual or groups of data streams, determining based at least in part on the levels of importance and on network capacity requirements of the data streams an ordered list of data streams to be curtailed or stopped in case of a shortage of bandwidth in the communications network, providing the list to a management entity that monitors available bandwidth, compares available bandwidth to a combined bandwidth requirement and, in response to determining that the available bandwidth is, or is imminent to become, less than the combined bandwidth requirement, curtails or stops data streams in the order given by the list so as to bring the combined bandwidth requirement back to or below the available bandwidth.

Orchestrating network usage under the threat of unexpected bandwidth shortages

A computer-implemented method includes obtaining an amount of a resource and/or capability of a process module, and dividing this amount by the maximum amount of the respective resource and/or capability to obtain a theoretical utilization of the resource and/or capability as the theoretical utilization of the process module. A pool of available process modules is searched to identify candidate process modules to replace the process module. The theoretical utilization for each candidate module is determined and an optimized topology of the plant is generated by replacing the process module with a candidate process module that has a same or a higher theoretical utilization than process module.

Computerized optimization of an engineered modular plant topology

A method for securely supplying data to be used in parameterizing a device for an industrial automation system includes a first party supplying a second party with a machine-readable standardized container for the exchange of device parameters in industrial automation systems, wherein the supplying comprises writing into the container an encrypted primary security credential to be used by the device for establishing trust with the industrial automation system. In another aspect, a method for securely obtaining data to be used in parameterizing a device for an industrial automation system includes obtaining, from a first party, by a second party, a machine-readable standardized container for the exchange of device parameters in industrial automation systems, the container comprising an encrypted primary security credential to be used by the device for establishing trust with the industrial automation system.

Secure provisioning of devices in industrial automation systems

A method for generating a dynamic model of an industrial plant having: a plurality of physical processes that are dependent such that an outcome of at least one first process is fed into at least one second process; a plurality of low-level controllers, each controller acting upon at least one physical process such that at least one process variable of the at least one physical process is controlled to match a set-point of the low-level controller; and a plurality of sensors, each sensor measuring at least one process variable of one of the physical processes, and/or of the plant as a whole, the set-points of the low-level controllers and current values of the process variables measured by the sensors being the inputs of the model, and predicted future values of the process variables that are likely to result from applying the set-points to the low-level controllers being the outputs.

Modularized model predictive control for industrial plants

An intent-based automation engineering method for automation of a production process includes: receiving an intent model, correlating to process intent, including production process functions, constraints on measurable properties on the production process functions, and/or production process function sequences required for the production process, as a received intent model; receiving a process model, correlating to process knowledge including a production process behavior, as a received process model; determining a machine-readable production model linking the received intent model to the received process model as a provided production model; and determining a control strategy for controlling the production process dependent on the provided production model as a determined control strategy.

Intent-based automation engineering method

The invention relates to a method and system to generate control logic for performing industrial processes with a controller in a process plant. The method includes receiving a control narrative comprising one or more control requirements of the industrial process, and extracting a plurality of control entities and a plurality of set points, from the control narrative using one or more sets of predetermined regular expressions and one or more models. The method further includes identifying a set of inputs, outputs and control elements from the plurality of control entities using a domain dictionary, detecting a plurality of actions from the control narrative using an intent classifier, identifying a relationship between the set of inputs, outputs and control elements, the plurality of set points, and the plurality of actions, and generating based on the relationship identified the control logic for the controller to perform the process.

Method and system to generate control logic for performing industrial processes

A computer-implemented method for determining an operational state of an industrial plant includes acquiring alarms raised within the plant and adding them to a pool of important alarms, determining whether a physical state of the plant indicated by a first alarm causes a second alarm or meets a predetermined state-dependent condition and, if so, moving the first alarm to a pool of informative alarms; and determining the operational state of the plant and/or a corrective action for improving this operational state based on the alarms in the pool of important alarms.

Computer-implemented method for determining an operational state of an industrial plant

A method of commissioning a field device in an industrial system network includes: a) connecting a field device to an industrial system network; c) providing information about the field device, the information including functional information for the field device; d) utilizing the functional information for the field device to retrieve information relating to a role of the field device in an automation application; f) utilizing capability information relating to a field device type of the field device and the information relating to the role of the field device in the automation application to retrieve a parameter set for the field device for operation in the automation application; and g) downloading the parameter set to the field device.

Method of commissioning a field device in an industrial system network

A method for managing operation of a mobile application, the application being operable in different modes, comprises obtaining a current value of a performance indicator of a network to which a mobile computing device is attached; map, based on a rule set, the value of the performance indicator to an optimal operating mode of the application and/or to at least one action; and cause the application to switch to the optimal operating mode, initiate the action, or prompt a user to switch the application to the optimal operating mode or initiate the action.

Managing the operation of applications on mobile computing devices

A computer-implemented method for monitoring a communication system includes identifying a set of signals that need to be transmitted over the communication system for proper functioning of the control and/or surveillance; for each signal from the identified set of signals, identifying one or more resources of the communication system that are needed for transmission of this signal; obtaining information that is indicative of the operational state of the identified resources; and evaluating, from the obtained information, at least one remedial activity which, when performed on at least one resource, and/or on the control and/or surveillance, is likely to improve, and/or to restore, the reliability of the control and/or surveillance.

Monitoring a communication system that is used for control and/or surveillance of an industrial process

An automated maintenance schedule generation method includes: receiving planning data for designing a modular plant comprising physical modules as received planning data; selecting digital modules, correlating to respective physical modules, from a database, depending on the received planning data as respective correlating physical modules, the digital modules including maintenance information of the respective correlating physical modules; associating the selected digital modules depending on the received planning data; determining an expected maintenance need including an expected maintenance issue and/or an expected maintenance issue date for the selected physical modules depending on the received maintenance information as a determined maintenance need; and generating a maintenance schedule for the modular plant depending on the determined maintenance need.

Automated maintenance schedule generation method for modular plants

A method for custom logic engineering in an industrial modular plant executing a production process includes receiving process data for the production process using at least one physical process module; determining a custom process topology by selecting, based on the received process data, at least one module type package, MTP; correlating to the at least one respective physical process module from a database, wherein the module type package is a digital representation of the respective physical process module; selecting at least one extender unit from the database based on the received process data; representing a logical function of the production process; determining connections between the extender unit(s) and the at least one MTP; setting properties of the extender unit(s) based on the received process data; and determining an extended control scheme for controlling dynamic behavior of the production process using the determined custom process topology.

Custom logic engineering of an industrial modular plant

A method for detection of harmful process intent in an intent-based production process includes: providing a machine-readable production model linking an intent model, correlating to process intent, including production process functions, constraints on measurable properties on the production process functions, and/or production process function sequences required for the production process, and a process model, correlating to process knowledge comprising a production process behavior; determining a safety library of at least one safety process intent, the safety library being protected by security mechanisms to be maintained outside of regular intent-based engineering mechanisms and operation mechanisms; evaluating changes of process intent in view of potentially harmful process intent dependent on the at least one safety process intent; and providing a report of potentially harmful process intent for auditing based on the potentially harmful process intent.

Detection of harmful process intent in an intent-based production process

A computer-implemented method for interoperable communication between a server and a client, at least one of the server and client being a component of an automation system, the server being associated with a corresponding server data model, and the client being associated with a corresponding client data model, includes: obtaining a reference to the server; analyzing structure and output of the server to derive, based on at least a first technical specification, one or more element types associated with elements of the server data model; generating at least a partial mapping between the server data model and the client data model by applying a transformation rule set to the server data model, the transformation rule set defining for the one or more derived element types how instances of the one or more derived element types are to be transformed from the server data model associated.

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Meckenheim, Germany

Dirk Schulz