Process control system and managing method therefor
AssigneeYokogawa Electric Corporation
InventorsMitsuhiro Yamamoto, Kimikazu Takahashi, Hiroyuki Takizawa, Ryuu-ichirou Hoshina
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process control system for controlling an industrial process implemented at a plant, may include: a network provided in the plant; a network device comprising at least one of a first detector, which is configured to detect a connection state of the network device with the network, and a second detector, which is configured to detect a state of the network device, the network device being configured to output at least one of connection information, which indicates a first detection result detected by the first detector, and device state information, which indicates a second detection result detected by the second detector, to the network.
Claims19
A process control system for controlling an industrial process implemented at a plant, comprising:
- a network provided in the plant;
- a network device comprising at least one of a first detector, which is configured to detect a connection state of the network device with the network, and a second detector, which is configured to detect a state of the network device, the network device being configured to output at least one of connection information, which indicates a first detection result detected by the first detector, and device state information, which indicates a second detection result detected by the second detector, to the network.
A network device included in a network provided in a plant and comprising a plurality of layers connected in layers and including other network devices, the network device comprising:
- a higher-level layer connection detector configured to detect a connection state between the network device and a higher-level layer network device, which is provided in a higher-level layer of the network and directly connected the network device, so as to output connection information indicating a detection result to a normalization unit;
- a lower-level layer connection detector configured to detect the connection state between the network device and a lower-level layer network device, which is provided in a lower-level layer of the network and directly connected the network device, so as to output the connection information indicating the detection result to the normalization unit;
- a device state detector configured to detect a state of the network device so as to output device state information indicating the detection result to the normalization unit;
- a lower-level layer information collection unit configured to collect at least one of the connection information and the device state information output from the lower-level layer network device so as to output to the normalization unit;
- the normalization unit configured to convert the connection information from the higher-level layer connecting detector and the lower-level layer connecting detector, the device state information from the device state detector, and at least one of the connection information and the device state information from the lower-level layer information collection unit to a predetermined format;
- and
- a communication unit configured to communicate with the higher-level layer network device and with the lower-level layer network device.
A managing method for a process control system for controlling an industrial process implemented at a plant, comprising:
- detecting at least one of a connection state of a network device, which is connected to a network provided at the plant or forming one part of the network, with the network, and the state of the network device;
- outputting at least one of connection information indicating a detection result of the connection state with the network, and device state information indicating a detection result of the state of the network device;
- and
- collecting the connection information and the device state information which has been output so as to manage the network.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.