Method and management system for controlling, monitoring and regulating complex industrial processes in particular, such as in a nuclear power plant

A method for controlling, monitoring and regulating processes in industrial plants, which comprises the steps of managing processes of a power plant, by:

• a) interacting at least one of robots provided as a computation program and human operators, with sensors and actuators being coupled to a process and procuring process information for influencing the process;
• b) collecting information about how values of process parameters are developed and what actions are triggered by the robots and the human operators in a log, by recording both a history of plant performance and an action history in the log, entering relevant sensor data being available on-line about robots, into the log;
• and encompassing contents of a high-quality operational handbook for the task of the robots and human operators being demarcated by specifications of the activities, with memorized execution and possibly background information,
• c) supplying a set of specifications of activities:
• c1) indicating what actions in what types of situations can be triggered, for referring the types both to the process history and the action history, and
• c2) each specification containing one set of references to information on executing the actions being directed to at least one of the robots and the human operators;
• and
• d) comparing the types of situations with a current situation indicated by the applicable log, ascertaining if the current situation corresponds to a type of situation, and deriving action possibilities therefrom, in a comparison unit.

A method for controlling, monitoring and regulating processes in industrial plants, which comprises the steps of:

• a) interacting at least one of robots provided as a computation program and human operators, with sensors and actuators being coupled to a process and procuring process information for influencing the process;
• b) collecting information about how values of process parameters are developed and what actions are triggered by the robots and the human operators in a log, by recording both a history of plant performance and an action history in the log;
• c) coordinating each robot through a data line and coordinating each of the involved human operators through a work station with another of the at least one of the robots and human operators, for the execution of a task by a plurality of at least one of the robots and human operators, by entering indications about actions they trigger into the common log or calling up memorized information, for making the at least one of the human operators and robots mutually aware of particular action possibilities being relevant to them,
• d) supplying a set of specifications of activities:
• d1) indicating what actions in what types of situations can be triggered, for referring the types both to the process history and the action history, and
• d2) each specification containing one set of references to information on executing the actions being directed to at least one of the robots and the human operators;
• and
• e) comparing the types of situations with a current situation indicated by the applicable log, ascertaining if the current situation corresponds to a type of situation, and deriving action possibilities therefrom, in a comparison unit.

A method for controlling, monitoring and regulating processes in industrial plants, which comprises the steps of:

• a) interacting at least one of robots provided as a computation program and human operators, with sensors and actuators being coupled to a process and procuring process information for influencing the process;
• b) collecting information about how values of process parameters are developed and what actions are triggered by the robots and the human operators in a log, by recording both a history of plant performance and an action history in the log;
• c) supplying a set of specifications of activities:
• c1) representing activities of a so-called "event-oriented" kind of procedure, for reproducing a task sequence essentially on the action history, with a flow chart, and
• c2) representing activities of a so-called "protection goal-oriented" kind of procedure, for reproducing a task sequence supported essentially on the plant history by means of a table linking plant statuses and respective activities being suitable as a reaction to them;
• c3) indicating what actions in what types of situations can be triggered, for referring the types both to the process history and the action,
• c4) modeling the "event-oriented" or "safeguard-oriented" task sequence with the sequence descriptions associated with the specifications of the activities;
• c5) supplying execution information associated with the specifications of the activities or background information linked therewith with contents of so-called "event-oriented" or "safeguard-oriented" operational handbooks and making it accessible off-line to a human operator for information search purposes;
• c6) each specification containing one set of references to information on executing the actions being directed to at least one of the robots and the human operators;
• and
• d) comparing the types of situations with a current situation indicated by the applicable log, ascertaining if the current situation corresponds to a type of situation, and deriving action possibilities therefrom, in a comparison unit.

A management system with a display device, for controlling, monitoring and regulating processes in industrial plants, comprising:

• a) at least one digital computer having a computation program forming robots;
• b) sensors and actuators interacting with said robots, being coupled to an industrial plant process and procuring process information or influencing the process;
• c) an input/output unit for human operators;
• d) a comparison unit;
• e) a data line connected to said comparison unit;
• f) a log module having a first data memory with an input side being connected to said robot for data entry and being connected to said input/output unit for human operators, said log module having an output side connected through said data line to said comparison unit, said log module collecting information about how values of process parameters develop and what actions are triggered by said robots and the human operators and logging a history of process performance and an action history;
• g) a second data memory for sequence descriptions or situation types having an output side connected to said comparison unit, for storing a set of specifications in memory, the specifications each containing a sequence description defining what actions can be triggered in what types of situations;
• and
• h) said comparison unit having means for comparing the situation types from said second data memory with a current situation logged by said log module, for comparing the types with both the history of the process performance and the action history of said robots and the human operators, for permitting a determination as to if the current situation matches one of the situation types, and for deriving action possibilities therefrom.