Inter-Zone Communication In Industrial Control Systems

Abstract

An Industrial Automation and Control System (IACS) for an industrial process including several neighbouring zones connected via a boundary element. The IACS includes a number of communicatively interconnected Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), wherein low-level IEDs interact with primary devices, and wherein high-level IEDs implement high-level zone functions. The IACS includes a logical communication link between the two high-level IEDs for bypassing the connecting IED in case of communicative unavailability. The communication link enables exchange between the high-level IEDs of summarized information including data originating from low-level IEDs of a first of the zones and relevant for a high-level function on behalf of some other zones. This reduces the communication load at the higher level function while maintaining an availability level comparable to a completely central solution.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.