Virtual placeholder configuration for distributed input/output modules
AssigneeSchneider Electric USA, Inc.
InventorsRichard A. Blair, Kenneth S. Lee, Nitin Dhayagude, Kerry Van de Steeg, Heinz Schaffner, Torsten Joachim Brune, Sascha Michael Kreβ
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A modular distributed I/O system for an industrial automation network that allows one or more modules of an island to be omitted without requiring reconfiguration of the system by maintaining a consistent I/O image representation of the distributed I/O network for various physical distributed I/O configurations, and managing reconfiguration changes using Virtual Placeholder objects.
Claims14
A system for configuring a process image in an automation network, the system comprising:
- a physical island having a network interface module, the physical island further including a plurality of input/output (I/O) modules,
- wherein configuration software run by the network interface module maintains a consistent process image for various distributed I/O configurations having one or more I/O modules of the plurality of I/O modules physically removed from the system using virtual placeholders, and
- wherein said configuration software generates a translation table that provides a correlation between node addresses of the physical island and node addresses of a logical island model of said physical island, wherein an I/O module of the plurality of I/O modules in a physical slot X having node ID X is presented outside the physical island as if that I/O module were located in slot Y.
A method of configuring a process image of a physical island, the method comprising:
- providing the physical island having a network interface module and a plurality of ports, each of the plurality of ports capable of connection to one of a plurality of input/output (I/O) modules;
- connecting at least one of the plurality of I/O modules to at least one of the plurality of ports;
- and,
- creating the process image of the physical island that indicates whether each of the plurality of I/O modules is physically present and not present using virtual placeholders,
- wherein the creating the process image further includes generating a translation table that provides a correlation between node addresses of the physical island and node addresses of a logical island model of said physical island, wherein an I/O module of the plurality of I/O modules in a physical slot X having node ID X appears in the logical island model as if that I/O module were located in slot Y and wherein an I/O configuration of the physical island maintains a consistent process image for various physical distributed I/O configurations having one or more I/O modules of the plurality of I/O modules physically removed.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable program instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
- providing a physical island having a network interface module and a plurality of ports, each of the plurality of ports capable of connection to one of a plurality of input/output (I/O) modules;
- connecting at least one of the plurality of I/O modules to at least one of the plurality of ports;
- and,
- creating a process image of the physical island that indicates whether each of the plurality of I/O modules is physically present and not present using virtual placeholders,
- wherein the creating the process image further includes generating a translation table that provides a correlation between node addresses of the physical island and node addresses of a logical island model of said physical island, wherein an I/O module of the plurality of I/O modules in a physical slot X having node ID X appears in the logical island model as if that I/O module were located in slot Y and wherein an I/O configuration of the physical island maintains a consistent process image for various physical distributed I/O configurations having one or more I/O modules of the plurality of I/O modules physically removed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.