Process control system using a control strategy implemented in a layered hierarchy of control modules

A process control system for controlling a plurality of field devices, the process control system comprising:

• a plurality of distributed controllers coupled to the field devices for controlling a process;
• and
• a distributed software system executing on the plurality of distributed controllers and implementing a control strategy for controlling the process, the control strategy being defined by a layered hierarchy of modules distributed for execution among the plurality of distributed controllers, the hierarchy of modules in a configuration architecture including:
• a process site layer;
• one or more physical plant areas in a layer contained within the process site layer, the physical plant areas representing a geographical segmentation or logical segmentation of the process site layer;
• one or more equipment modules contained within a physical plant area of the one or more physical plant areas, the equipment modules being associated to a specific object of plant equipment;
• and
• one or more control modules contained within a physical plant area of the one or more physical plant areas or contained within an equipment module of the one or more equipment modules, the equipment modules and the control modules being elemental modules that contain exclusively one or more primitives, and composite modules that contain one or more elemental modules.

A process control system comprising:

• a plurality of field devices;
• a plurality of distributed controllers coupled to the field devices for controlling a process;
• and
• a distributed software system executing on the plurality of distributed controllers and implementing a control strategy for controlling the process, the control strategy being defined by a layered hierarchy of modules distributed for execution among the plurality of distributed controllers and the plurality of field devices, the hierarchy of modules in a configuration architecture including:
• a process site layer;
• one or more physical plant areas in a layer contained within the process site layers the physical plant areas representing a geographical segmentation or logical segmentation of the process site layer;
• one or more equipment modules contained within a physical plant area of the one or more physical plant areas, the equipment modules being associated to a specific object of plant equipment;
• and
• one or more control modules contained within a physical plant area of the one or more physical plant areas or contained within an equipment module of the one or more equipment modules, the equipment modules and the control modules being elemental modules containing exclusively one or more primitives and composite modules that contain exclusively one or more primitives, and composite modules that contain one or more elemental modules.

A control system for controlling a process under direction of a user, the control system comprising:

• a controller coupled to the process;
• and
• a software system executing on the controller and implementing a control strategy for controlling the process, the control strategy being defined by an hierarchy of layers including:
• a site layer;
• a plurality of physical plant areas allocated within the site layer;
• a plurality of equipment modules allocated within the plurality of physical plant areas, the equipment modules including composite equipment modules that contain other equipment modules;
• and
• a plurality of control modules allocated within a plant area of the plurality of physical plant areas or within an equipment module of the plurality of equipment modules, the control modules being objects of a container class, a control module of the plurality of control modules having a specified task and a predefined external interface, the control module being encapsulated in the software system and accessed through the predefined external interfaces so that the control module is user-modifiable.