Apparatus and method for sharing data among a plurality of control devices on a communications network
AssigneeGE Fanuc Automation North America, Inc.
InventorsRonald Wayne Olson, Anthony Joseph Cinalli, Andrew Edward Spencer
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Abstract
A networked system is provided for connecting a plurality of programmable logic controllers together in a manner which more efficiently uses available network bandwidth. The network includes a producer controller and at least one consumer controller. The producer controller shares a portion of its internal memory with other consumer controllers on the network. In this manner, a data sample is sent from the producer controller to one or more consumer controllers. The consumer controllers check to determine if data samples are lost during transmission over the network and initiate responsive corrective action.
Claims10
A system of programmable logic controllers communicating with each other under a predetermined communications protocol, the system comprising:
- a plurality of programmable logic controllers including a producer controller and at least one consumer controller;
- and
- a communications network connecting the producer controller to the consumer controller, the producer controller taking a data sample and transmitting the data sample to the consumer controller over the network, the consumer controller checking for loss of data samples transmitted from the producer controller to the consumer controller.
A method of communicating among a plurality of programmable logic controllers under a predetermined communications protocol, the plurality of programmable logic controllers including a producer controller and at least one consumer controller, the method comprising:
- networking the plurality of programmable logic controllers together;
- sampling data by the producer controller to generate a data sample;
- transmitting by the producer controller of the data sample over the network to the at least one consumer controller;
- and
- checking by the at least one consumer controller for loss of the data sample.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.