Safety controller providing rapid recovery of safety program data
AssigneeRockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.
InventorsJoseph Paul Izzo, Norman Sievert Shelvik, Michael Dean Kalan, Charles Martin Rischar, Raymond Louis Buvel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Re-certification of a control program loaded in a safety controller is avoided through the use of a digital snapshot and digital signature, the snapshot providing a rapidly loadable memory image file and the signature providing a confirmation that the file loaded matches a previously certified copy so as to avoid the need for time consuming re-certification.
Claims21
A safety industrial controller for executing a safety program, the controller executing a stored program to:
- (i) download safety program data to a memory of the controller;
- (ii) read the safety program data in memory to derive a signature functionally dependant on values of the safety program data in memory;
- and
- (iii) compare the signature to a stored signature derived from previously certified safety program data.
A safety industrial controller for executing a safety program, the controller comprising:
- a means for receiving the safety program data to a memory of the controller;
- a signature generator reading the safety program data in memory to derive a signature functionally dependant on values of the safety program data in memory;
- and
- means for comparing a signature generated by the signature generator to a stored signature derived from previously certified safety program data.
A method of operating a safety industrial controller comprising the steps of:
- (a) creating a safety program;
- (b) downloading the safety program data to memory of a safety controller;
- (c) certifying operation of the downloaded safety program executing on the safety controller;
- (d) creating a first signature of the downloaded and certified safety program, the signature functionally dependent on values of the safety program data in memory;
- and
- (e) storing the first signature.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.