Industrial control system with web enabled I/O modules
AssigneeRockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.
InventorsBrian A. Batke, Gary W. Baczkowski
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An industrial control system provides a programmable logic controller communicating with I/O modules which provide an electrical interface to controlled equipment and which support web servers for communication of I/O data directly with the Internet. The programmable logic controller communicates with the I/O modules over a control-network which may be separate from or shared with the Internet communications. A lock-out system prevents collisions between web clients writing to I/O and allows the programmable logic controller to limit web access to critical I/O points.
Claims14
An I/O module for use with an industrial control system having a programmable logic controller for executing an industrial control program and communicating over a control-network with the I/O module, the I/O module comprising:
- an I/O interface communicating electrical signals between the I/O interface and the industrial process;
- an Internet interface communicating electrical signals between an embedded Web server and the Internet;
- a network interface communicating electrical signals between the I/O module and the programmable logic controller;
- and
- a processing unit connected to the I/O interface, the Internet interface and the network interface and executing a stored program to pass data both between the Internet and the I/O interface and between the network interface and the I/O interface;
- wherein both the network interface and the Internet interface include a media connection to common media of the control-network and wherein the Internet interface communicates with the Internet through the control-network and the network interface communicates with the programmable logic controller through the control-network;
- whereby Internet control of the industrial process may be had through the I/O module using the embedded Web server without intervention of the programmable logic controller,
- wherein the processing unit also executes the stored program to accept a write disable command from the programmable logic controller causing the stored program to controllably block data from passing between the Internet interface and the I/O interface.
An industrial control system comprising:
- a control-network;
- a programmable logic controller for executing an industrial control program and having an interface for communicating on the control-network;
- a plurality of I/O modules communicating further including
- (a) respective I/O interfaces communicating electrical signals between the I/O interface and the industrial process, at least one I/O module further including;
- (b) respective network interfaces communicating electrical signals between the network interface and the control-network;
- at least one I/O module further including:
- (c) an Internet interface respective Internet interfaces communicating electrical signals between the Internet interface I/O module and the Internet;
- and
- (d) a processing unit which executes a stored program to accept a write disable command from the programmable logic controller causing the stored program to controllably block data from passing between the Internet interface and the I/O interface while allowing data to pass between the I/O interface and the network interface;
- whereby Internet control of the industrial process may be had through the I/O module modules without intervention of the programmable logic controller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.