Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated

Allen-Bradley Company, LLC

Rockwell Automation, Inc.

Kendal R Harris

Sivaram Balasubramanian

Jonathan D Bradford

Chandresh R Chaudhari

Robert J Kretschmann

Charles Martin Rischar

Juergen K Weinhofer

Raymond R Husted

Kenwood H Hall

Anthony Gerard Gibart

Scott A Pierce

Jacob Strickler Baker

Mark A Chaffee

Gregory A Majcher

Edward C Korsberg

Gregg M Sichner

Mark A Flood

Daniel E Killian

Anatoly Moldovansky

Kyle E Neet

Patrick D Telljohann

Timothy J Murphy

Robert C Weppler

David M Fort

Timothy Siorek

Margarita M Hutz

Alan C Cribbs

Martin George Gach

Mark Joseph Balewski

David Allen Johnston

Ronald Edwin Schultz

John Michael Keller

Elmorris P Dixon

Dennis J Dombrosky

Dennis M Wright

Jack D Calderon

Satoshi Yamashita

Sivaram Balasubramania

Tomoyuki Nanami

David A Karpuszka

Donald A Westman

Jürgen K Weinhofer

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.

System and method of communicating data over high availability industrial control systems

A method and system for assigning slot addresses to modules in a fault tolerant industrial control system includes a pair of backplane switches on each base. Each backplane switch is configured to communicate between one backplane and the modules located on the base and to communicate between backplane switches located at adjacent bases. A backplane switch on a bank master base first assigns a base address and slot addresses to itself. The backplane switches on each additional base initiate transmission of a base address request. A base address response, including a base address and slot numbers for the adjacent base, is transmitted after a base has its own address assigned. Each base repeats the process in sequence along the bank, incrementing the base address by one and the slot address by the number of slots on the base and passing the new base and slot addresses along the bank.

Fault tolerant backplane slot assignment

A modular I/O system for an industrial automation network includes a network adapter including first and second adapter modules, wherein each adapter module is configured for connection with an industrial network. The I/O system further includes a first I/O device with first and second I/O modules each configured for operative connection to a controlled system for input/output of data with respect to the controlled system. The I/O system further includes first and second independent backplane data networks that connect each of the first and second adapter modules to each of the first and second I/O modules. The network adapter includes first and second removable backplane network switches and the first I/O device includes third and fourth removable backplane network switches that establish the backplane networks. The backplane network switches can be Ethernet gigabit switches.

Distributed modular input/output (I/O) system with redundant ethernet backplane networks for improved fault tolerance

An enhanced transfer of information using an industrial protocol system and method are disclosed. In one embodiment, an industrial automation system includes a serving device communicably coupled with a client device via an industrial data exchange protocol. The client device is configured to generate a service request in accordance with the industrial data exchange protocol, compress the service request, encapsulate the compressed service request in a request packet, and send the request packet to the serving device. The serving device is configured to receive the request packet, decompress the compressed service request, process the service request, gather a service response payload based on the service request, compress the service response payload, encapsulate the compressed service response payload into a response packet, and send the response packet to the client device.

Enhanced transfer of information using an industrial protocol system and method

A method and system for interacting with data frames passing through a module connected to an industrial network is disclosed. Each module includes an aggregation unit located on the network interface above the physical layer. To transmit data, the aggregation unit reads a header from a dynamic data packet to determine if the module is a participant module for the packet. If so, the aggregation unit inserts data from the module into the data packet and transmits the packet to another module. To receive data, the aggregation unit reads a header from the data packet to determine whether the data packet includes data for the module. If so, the aggregation unit reads the data and passes the data packet to another module. If the aggregation unit determines that a data packet is not intended for the module, the data packet is passed to another module with no further interaction.

Method and system for data aggregation in an industrial communication protocol

A method and system for assigning slot addresses to modules in an industrial control system is disclosed. The modules are set up in a daisy chain topology. On power-up, a first module in the chain reads its slot address from a user configurable input or sets its slot address to a default value. The first module communicates to its immediate right neighbor using a special, one-hop message. The neighboring modules communicate to receive each other's information. The first module then sets an enable signal between the modules and sends a slot number to the neighbor in a firmware message. The neighbor checks if the enable signal is set and verifies that the slot number is a valid slot number. If so, then the neighboring module accepts the slot and repeats the same procedure to its next immediate neighbor, and so on until the last module.

Method and system for defining slot addresses

A system that enables controlling motion over a network comprises an interface that receives motion control data that includes a time stamp from the network. Additionally, the system includes a motion control component that utilizes the received motion control data to update properties associated with the motion control component based at least in part on the time stamp. The system can also include a clock that is synchronized with disparate clocks associated with disparate motion control components located on the network.

Time stamped motion control network protocol that enables balanced single cycle timing and utilization of dynamic data structures

Systems and methods that correlate among disparate pieces of synchronized data, collected from an 'internal' data stream (e.g., history data collected from an industrial unit) and an 'external' data stream (e.g., traffic data on network services). A process trend component that determines/predicts an outcome of an industrial process and facilitates diagnostics/prognostics of an industrial system. Accordingly, relations among various parameters can be discovered (e.g., dynamically) and proper corrective adjustments supplied to the industrial process. Such enables a tight control and short reaction time to process parameters, and for a modification thereof.

Correlation of non-times series events in industrial systems

A programming interface for a control system comprises a display region that provides a representation of a plurality of output cam profiles. The representation provides information concerning latch/unlatch operations of a plurality of cam elements that control on/off states of a plurality of output devices and that form the plurality of output cam profiles.

Output cam system and method

Systems and methods that vary multiple data sampling rates, to collect sets of data with different levels of granularity for an industrial system. The data for such industrial system includes sets of data from the 'internal' data stream(s) (e.g., history data collected from an industrial unit) and sets of data from an 'external' (e.g., traffic data on network services) data stream(s), based in part on the criticality/importance criteria assigned to each collection stage. Each set of data can be assigned its own unique data collection rate. For example, a higher sample rate can be employed when collecting data from the network during an operation stage that is deemed more critical (e.g., dynamic attribution of predetermined importance factors) than the rest of the operation.

Adjustment of data collection rate based on anomaly detection

One or more embodiments provide Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) based time synchronization systems and methods. The CIP Sync solution can be part of Ethernet/IP and can be based on standard UDP (User Datagram Protocol) and/or IEEE 1588 (Time Synchronization) Ethernet technology. According to an embodiment is a system that compensates for step changes in a master clock.

Step time change compensation in an industrial automation network

A method and circuit for precisely synchronizing clocks in separate nodes on a communication network is provided by adjusting timestamps and related data in network messages. The circuit will allow a daisy-chain connection of the nodes and will forward time synchronization frames while accounting for delays in a manner that does not use boundary clocks, but does not depart from the IEEE 1588 standard protocol. The delays will be added on the fly to synchronization packets and the IP checksum and frame CRC will be adjusted. Deterministic data delivery and redundant data paths are also provided in a full duplex Ethernet network.

Time synchronization, deterministic data delivery and redundancy for cascaded nodes on full duplex ethernet networks

Growing community of inventors

Mentor, OH, United States of America

Kendal R Harris