Emulated industrial control execution rate scaling
AssigneeRockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.
InventorRichard J. Grgic
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A host system which executes an emulation environment for modelling a logical behavior of an industrial control device may execute a clock management module to scale execution time in the emulation environment to more accurately reflect execution time of the industrial control device. The clock management module may operate to receive repeatable ticks based on a real time clock of the host system. The repeatable ticks may be used to measure execution of a portion of an industrial control program in the emulation environment, which measure may be compared to a reference value for executing the same portion on the industrial control device. The host system may then temporarily stall execution in the emulation environment to match execution on the industrial control device.
Claims20
A method for modeling an industrial control device comprising:
- (a) executing on a host system a program environment stored in a non-transient computer readable medium, the program environment being operable to execute an emulation module defining a model for a logical behavior of an industrial control device, wherein the emulation module permits execution of a second program being an industrial control program;
- (b) executing a portion of the industrial control program via the emulation module, the portion having multiple program elements including at least one instruction controlling an operation of the industrial control device being modeled;
- (c) counting a number of periodic ticks synchronous with a clock in the host system while executing the portion of the industrial control program using the emulation module to determine a host system time for execution of the portion of the industrial control program on the host system using the emulation module;
- and
- (d) comparing the host system time to a predetermined execution time stored in a data structure of the host system, wherein the predetermined execution time indicates a time period for executing the portion of the industrial control program on the industrial control device being modeled.
A system for modeling an industrial control device comprising:
- a host computer executing a program environment stored in a non-transient computer readable medium, the program environment being operable to execute an emulation module defining a model for a logical behavior of an industrial control device, wherein the emulation module permits execution of a second program being an industrial control program, wherein the host computer is operable to:
- (a) execute a portion of the industrial control program via the emulation module, the portion having multiple program elements including at least one instruction controlling an operation of the industrial control device being modeled;
- (b) count a number of periodic ticks synchronous with a clock generated by the host computer while executing the portion of the industrial control program using the emulation module to determine a host computer time for execution of the portion of the industrial control program on the host computer using the emulation module;
- and
- (c) compare the host computer time to a predetermined execution time stored in a data structure of the host computer, wherein the predetermined execution time indicates a time period for executing the portion of the industrial control program on the industrial control device being modeled.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.