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US 5,923,557 AGranted
Method and apparatus for providing a standard interface to process control devices that are adapted to differing field-bus protocols
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Company
InventorJohn C. Eidson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus is disclosed that provides a standard interface to process control devices which are adapted to differing field-bus protocols. The techniques disclosed herein enable integration of process control devices adapted to differing field-bus protocols while avoiding the use of protocol gateways which would otherwise greatly complicate the task of developing process control application programs.
Claims13
An apparatus for providing a standard interface to a process control device which is adapted to a predetermined field-bus protocol of a field-bus, comprising:
- means for obtaining a set of information pertaining to the process control device wherein the information describes the process control device according to a predetermined device-oriented protocol that corresponds to the standard interface;
- means for enabling a process control application to access the information using the predetermined device-oriented protocol;
- means for generating a set of interface-related information that specifies at least one channel of the standard interface to be used for communication with the process control device according to a predetermined device-oriented protocol;
- means for enabling the process control application to access the interface-related information using the predetermined device-oriented protocol.
1 more element
A process control system, comprising:
- a set of process control devices coupled to a field-bus, wherein each process control device is adapted to a predetermined protocol of the field-bus;
- mapper that enables an application controller to access the process control devices as if the process control devices conformed to a standard interface having a predetermined device-oriented protocol wherein the mapper comprises
- field-bus interface that enables access to the process control devices via the field-bus using the predetermined protocol of the field-bus;
- device-oriented interface that enables communication with the application controller using the predetermined device-oriented protocol;
- database for holding a set of information pertaining to the process control devices which describes the process control devices in terms of the predetermined device-oriented protocol;
- mapping processor that builds the information in the database and that enables access to the information by the application controller via the device-oriented interface.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.