Method of managing event generation for an industrial controller

A method of handling a plurality of events for an industrial controller operable to control a machine or process, the method comprising the steps of:

• receiving one of an input signal and an output signal at each of a plurality of terminals of an Input/Output (I/O) module, wherein each input or output signal has at least one state and each of the plurality of terminals is configured to transmit the input or output signal corresponding to the terminal between the I/O module and a controlled device for the machine or process;
• generating an event in the I/O module responsive to receiving one of a first predefined state and a first combination of states of the input or output signals present at each of the plurality of terminals, wherein each event is configured to trigger an event task;
• capturing a state of the I/O module, wherein the state of the I/O module includes the state of each of the input or output signals at all of the plurality of terminals at a time the event is generated;
• storing each event and the state of the I/O module in an event queue when each event is generated, wherein the event queue is stored on a memory device in the I/O module;
• receiving each event and the corresponding state of the I/O module from the event queue at a processor;
• and
• executing an event task on the processor responsive to receiving each event using the corresponding state of the I/O module.

A method of handling a plurality of events in an industrial control system, wherein the industrial control system includes an industrial controller having at least one Input/Output (I/O) module and a processor module, each I/O module including a plurality of terminals configured to transmit an input or output signal corresponding to the terminal between the I/O module and a device for the industrial control system, the method comprising the steps of:

• generating an event in the I/O module responsive to receiving one of a predefined state and a combination of states of the input or output signals present at each of the plurality of terminals, wherein each event is configured to trigger an event task;
• capturing a state of the I/O module, wherein the state of the I/O module includes the state of the input or output signal at all of the plurality of terminals at a time the event is generated;
• transmitting each event and the corresponding state of the I/O module from the I/O module to an event queue when each event is generated, wherein the event queue is stored in a memory device on the I/O module;
• and
• executing an event task on the processor module responsive to each event in the event queue using the corresponding state of the I/O module.