System And Method Of Connection Management During Synchronization Of High Availability Industrial Control Systems
AssigneeRockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.
InventorsNicholas Stay, Kyle Neet
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Abstract
An industrial controller executes a control program held in non-transitory medium to: (a) open connections for the communication of data on the industrial control network, the connection subject to a timeout; (b) operate in a synchronized state with the second industrial controller to execute a same control program to communicate same control data; (c) operate in an unsynchronized state providing no-operation data to the industrial control network, the no-operation data preventing timeout of the open connections on which it is communicated.
Claims19
An industrial controller of a type providing control data on an industrial control network to one or more I/O circuits generating signals to control an industrial process, the industrial controller operating in conjunction with a second industrial controller also communicating with the one or more I/O circuits to provide high-availability control of the industrial process, the industrial controller comprising a processor executing a control program held in non-transitory media to:
- (a) open connections for a communication of data on the industrial control network, the connections subject to a timeout upon which they are closed when no data is communicated for a predetermined interval;
- (b) operate in a synchronized state with the second industrial controller to execute a same control program to communicate same control data to the industrial control network using the open connections;
- and
- (c) operate in an unsynchronized state providing no-operation data to the industrial control network using the open connections, the no-operation data being different from the control data communicated by the second industrial controller yet preventing timeout of the open connections on which it is communicated.
A method of operating an industrial controller of a type providing control data on an industrial control network to one or more I/O circuits generating signals to control an industrial process, the industrial controller operating in conjunction with a second industrial controller also communicating with the one or more I/O circuits to provide high-availability control of the industrial process, the method comprising operating the industrial controller to execute a control program held in non-transitory media to:
- (a) open connections for communication of data on the industrial control network, the connections subject to a timeout upon which they are closed when no data is communicated for a predetermined interval;
- (b) operate in a synchronized state with the second industrial controller to execute a same control program to communicate same control data to the industrial control network using the open connections;
- and
- (c) operate in an unsynchronized state providing no-operation data to the industrial control network using the open connections, the no-operation data being different from the control data communicated by the second industrial controller yet preventing timeout of the open connections on which it is communicated.
The method of claim 19 wherein the industrial controller sets the hop counter value so that no-operation data is not transmitted to nodes or I/O modules once an origin of the no-operation data cannot be identified to one of the industrial controller and second industrial controller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.