Honeywell International Inc.

William Russell Massey, Jr

Paul Francis McLaughlin

Alexander Chernoguzov

Raj L Bandekar

Gary Drayton

An industrial process control system comprises a primary controller coupled with a buffer and a primary memory. The primary controller is configured to create at least one redundant data type based on at least one base data type. The at least one redundant data type includes tracked operators that are different from corresponding operators of the at least one base data type. The tracked operators include an assignment function that is a same assignment function performed by the corresponding operators of the at least one base data type, and a transfer function. The primary controller is further configured to perform the assignment function on a piece of data to assign the piece of data to an address in the primary memory, perform the transfer function to transfer the piece of data to a buffer, and transfer contents of the buffer to a backup memory.

Method for synchronizing redundant controllers without hardware support

A redundant process controller arrangement includes a primary controller and parallel connected secondary controller each coupled to actuators and sensors coupled to processing equipment. The primary and secondary controllers include a main writable memory including a cache data control algorithm, central processing unit (CPU) with cache memory including cache not supporting write-thru, tracker logic coupled to a control cycle database in a tracked memory region and to a primary tracking buffer. A redundancy link is between the CPUs for passing tracked changes. The algorithm implements memory tracking using copy-back including the primary tracker logic each cycle writing tracked changes into the primary tracking buffer, and at cycle end, transferring tracked changes from the primary tracking buffer to the secondary controller over the redundancy link, and writing tracked changes to the secondary control database.

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Levittown, PA, United States of America

William Russell Massey, Jr