Fisher-rosemount Systems, Inc

Robert G Halgren, Iii

Claudio Fayad

Mark J Nixon

Anthony Amaro, Jr

Peter Hartmann

Gary Keith Law

John Mark Caldwell

Trevor Duncan Schleiss

Seshatre Natarajan

Michael George Ott

Julian Kevin Naidoo

Brandon Hieb

Aaron C Jones

Deborah R Colclazier

William E Bennett

Karen Johnson

Aaron Crews

Nina Golder

Brian M Capoccia

A distributed control system (DCS) of an industrial process plant includes a data center storing a plant information model that includes a description of physical components, the control framework, and the control network of the plant using a modeling language. A set of exposed APIs provides DCS applications access to the model, and to an optional generic framework of the data center which stores basic structures and functions from which the DCS may automatically generate other structures and functions to populate the model and to automatically create various applications and routines utilized during run-time operations of the DCS and plant. Upon initialization, the DCS may automatically sense the I/O types of its interface ports, detect communicatively connected physical components within the plant, and automatically populate the plant information model accordingly. The DCS may optionally automatically generate related control routines and/or I/O data delivery mechanisms, HMI routines, and the like.

Industrial process control system as a data center of an industrial process plant

A hyperconverged industrial process control architecture is disclosed for controlling an industrial process within a physical process environment using a software-defined distributed control system (DCS) environment. The software-defined DCS environment may be implemented by virtualizing the hardware components of a DCS architecture on a server group to enable both software-defined process controllers and back-end DCS applications to run within the server group. This software-defined DCS network architecture reduces the hardware requirements of the process control system and reduces configuration complexity by implementing control components and higher-level components within a common environment within the server group.

Industrial control system hyperconverged architecture

An edge gateway system securely delivers and exposes data generated by and/or related to a process plant for consumption by external systems, and includes a field-facing component that sends, to an edge-facing component of the system, a collection of data types defined based on configurations of the process plant and represented using a syntax that is native to the one or more external systems. The field-facing component streams process plant-related content data indicated by one or more interest lists to the edge-facing component, where the streamed data is expressed using the collection of data types. Each interest list may include multiple types of data (e.g., control, I/O, diagnostic, device, historical, etc.) that collectively represent a particular named entity of the plant. Accordingly, the streamed data is securely delivered and exposed, via the edge-facing component, to the external systems.

Edge gateway system with data typing for secured process plant data delivery

An edge gateway system securely delivers and exposes data generated by and/or related to a process plant for consumption by external systems, and includes an edge-facing component that receives process plant-related data from a process plant via a field-facing component of the system. The received data may comport with an exposable data type system utilizing a syntax known to the external systems. The edge-facing component stores the received data in a data lake, and mines the data lake to thereby discover relationships between stored data points. Indications of the received data and the discovered interrelationships are stored in a contextualized process plant knowledge repository, such as a graph database, that is accessible to the external systems and other systems and applications via one or more access mechanisms, which may include utilities, services, servers, and/or applications. Some of the access mechanisms allow external applications to be installed at the edge-facing component.

Edge gateway system with contextualized process plant knowledge repository

Drones (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicles, or 'UAVs') equipped with cameras and sensors may be configured to travel throughout the field environment of a process plant to monitor process plant conditions. Onboard computing devices associated with the drones control the movement of the drones through the field environment of the process plant. The onboard computing devices interface with the cameras and other sensors and communicate with user interface devices, controllers, servers and/or databases via a network. The onboard computing devices may receive drone commands from user interface devices and/or servers, or may access drone commands stored in one or more databases. The onboard computing devices may transmit data captured by the cameras and/or other sensors to UI devices, controllers, servers, etc. Accordingly, the user interface devices may display data (including live video feeds) captured by the drone cameras and/or drone sensors to an operator in a human machine interface application.

Drone-enabled operator rounds

An edge gateway system securely delivers and exposes data generated by and/or related to a process plant for consumption by external systems, and includes a field-facing component that stores interest lists indicating the particular data that is allowed to be exposed by the field-facing component. Each interest list is defined (e.g., manually and/or automatically) in accordance with an exposable data type system extracted from (in some cases, multiple different) configurations of the process plant, and may include multiple types of data (e.g., control, I/O, diagnostic, device, historical, etc.) that collectively represent a particular named entity of the plant. The field-facing component obtains the process plant-related data indicated by the interest lists, and provides the obtained field content data to an edge-facing component of the edge gateway system for exposure to external systems, for example, by streaming and/or publishing the obtained data to the edge-facing component.

Edge gateway system for secured, exposable process plant data delivery

An enhanced modular controller is disclosed that includes a plurality of configurable communication ports and a control logic layer operable to control equipment of a process plant. The plurality of communication ports include a first set of communication ports and a second set of communication ports which are operable to communicate with one or more nodes of a distributed control system of the process plant. The enhanced modular controller also includes a software layer that accepts port configuration parameters that define one or more port communication rules for the first set of communication ports and for the second set of communication ports. The one or more port communication rules causes the software layer to selectively allow or restrict retransmission of incoming messages, where the incoming messages are received at the first set of communication ports or the second set of communication ports.

Systems and methods for enhanced modular controller port to port communication

A modular control system includes a modular controller that implements control logic of the modular control system, where the controller is built natively on a platform of a distributed control system, equipment configured to perform a physical function in a process plant according to the control logic, and a configuration database storing configuration parameters of the modular control system. In a first mode of operation, the modular control system operates as a standalone module, and in a second mode of operation, the modular control system operates natively as one or several nodes of a distributed control system.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Robert G Halgren, Iii