Monitoring of communication systems used to control and / or monitor industrial processes

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to monitoring a communication system for controlling and / or monitoring an industrial process. A computer-implemented method (100) for monitoring a communication system (1) for controlling and / or monitoring at least one industrial process (2) comprises the following steps: identifying (110) a set of signals (31-33) that need to be transmitted through the communication system (1) for normal operation of the control and / or monitoring; for each signal (31-33) in the identified set of signals, identifying (120) one or more resources (11a-11c) in the communication system (1) that are required to transmit the signal (31-33); obtaining (130) information (12a-12c) indicating the operating state of the identified resources (11a-11c); and evaluating (140) at least one remedial action (4) from the obtained information (12a-12c), the remedial action being capable of improving and / or restoring the reliability of the control and / or monitoring when performed on at least one resource (11a-11c) and / or when performed on the control and / or monitoring.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to improving the reliability of control and / or monitoring of industrial processes in settings where such control and / or monitoring involves transmission of signals over a network. Background Art

[0002] In a distributed control system DCS for industrial processes, low-level controllers send drive signals to actors that act on the physical behavior of the process and receive measurements from sensors that indicate the current physical state of the process. Many such low-level controllers are tasked with maintaining a specific process variable at a desired set-point value. The set-point value is provided by an upper-level process control instance in order to steer the entire process toward an optimum according to any desired optimality criteria.

[0003] The functionality of a DCS depends on reliable signal exchange through a network infrastructure connecting upper level instances, lower level controllers, participants and sensors. Network communication failures may affect the reliability of a DCS. Therefore, US10,505,786B2 discloses a problem investigation device for a DCS having a root cause analysis unit capable of identifying a communication network element as the root cause of a deviation of an actual communication parameter from a corresponding communication requirement. To this end, the problem investigation device comprises a system model having a software representation of a process control endpoint device, which is interconnected via a communication network using a plurality of links. Summary of the invention

[0004] Purpose of the invention

[0005] The invention aims to improve the reliability of distributed control systems that use a network infrastructure for communication, even in settings where such network infrastructure is not fully under the control of an operator of the distributed control system. For example, in such a setting, the operator of the distributed control system may have a network connection contract with a service provider, and the contract may specify a connection with a certain quality of service.

[0006] This object is achieved by a method according to the independent claim. Further advantageous embodiments are specified in the dependent claims.

[0007] Disclosure of the Invention

[0008] The present invention provides a computer-implemented method for monitoring a communication system for controlling and / or monitoring at least one industrial process. In particular, the control of the industrial process may include operating a distributed control system for the process using the communication system itself. For example, monitoring may include observation using a camera or other sensor, the data of which needs to be transmitted via the communication system.

[0009] During the method, signals that need to be transmitted via the communication system for proper operation of the control and / or monitoring are identified. For example, the signals may include measurements acquired by sensors, images or other monitoring data, actuation commands issued by a lower-level controller, and / or set points issued by a higher-level process control instance.

[0010] For each signal from the identified set of signals, one or more resources of the communication system required to transmit the signal are identified. This information is available within the operator that performs the control and / or monitoring. In the case where the operator does not provide his own links and network devices, the specific communication resources are purchased from one or more providers. He then allocates the signals to be transmitted to the communication resources and / or has a router or other network device distribute the signals to be transmitted across a plurality of available communication resources. In either case, the resources required to transmit a particular signal are discoverable by the machine.

[0011] Resources may be defined at any level of abstraction. For example, at least one resource may include a service that provides data transmission from a predetermined source to a predetermined destination at a predetermined bandwidth and / or a predetermined quality of service. Many network operators sell capacity at this level of abstraction, making it impossible for customers to see what physical resources the network operator uses to provide the resources. However, resources may also include physical resources of the operator that are controlled and / or monitored, as well as other types of resources such as public dial-up circuit-switched or packet-switched networks.

[0012] Information indicating an operational state of an identified resource is obtained. In particular, such obtaining may, for example, include active probing, passive monitoring, or subscription to changes in state information. For example, active probing may include sending a ping, keepalive, heartbeat, or other probe message through a resource to test whether the resource is still valid. For example, passive monitoring may include monitoring key performance indicators, KPIs, communications, or monitoring events or error logs related to communications, control, and / or monitoring. For example, a provider of communications resources may provide current information about current planned or unplanned outages in a publish-subscribe model. For example, a particular resource may be published to be unavailable or to have reduced available capacity prior to planned maintenance.

[0013] For example, the amount and level of detail of state information that is relevant in this context may depend on the agreed quality of service. For example, such quality of service may be specified in a service level agreement (SLA). For example, a change in state information may be considered relevant if it has the potential to affect the agreed quality of service. In this way, many smaller changes may be filtered out.

[0014] Changes can also be filtered based on quantitative limits. For example, similar to alarms in a process control system, where "Hi" or "Lo" represents a first level escalation and "HiHi" or "LoLo" represents a second level escalation, subscriptions to changes in quantitative parameters can be conditioned on relative or absolute thresholds of change and / or trends or other predictions.

[0015] The relevant status information may also include information indicating or predicting future operating states. For example, such information may include the level of redundancy often agreed upon in a service level agreement. If n-fold redundancy has been agreed upon and n-1 components fail simultaneously, the communication resources will temporarily remain operational, but the probability of future failures will increase. Therefore, a reduction in the available redundancy level may be an important change in status information that the operator of the process wants to be aware of.

[0016] At least one remedial action is evaluated from the acquired information. The remedial action is selected such that when it is performed on at least one resource of the communication system and / or on the control and / or monitoring, it is likely to improve and / or restore the reliability of the control and / or monitoring.

[0017] The types of remedial actions available depend on the type of the corresponding communication resource and the source from which it was procured. If it is a resource owned by the operator of control and / or monitoring and physically accessible, remedial actions may include maintenance and / or repair of specific network elements and / or links. However, if the resource is purchased from a network provider at the above-mentioned high level of abstraction, targeted remedial actions are also possible. For example, remedial actions may include one or more of the following:

[0018] · sending a notification about the failure and / or degradation of at least one resource to a provider of the resource;

[0019] Acquire additional resources that can take over traffic for specific resources to provide redundancy;

[0020] Offload traffic from one resource to at least one other resource.

[0021] That is, the scope of remedial activities triggered in response to the failure or unavailability of a particular resource need not be limited to that resource itself.

[0022] In a simple example, in the process of obtaining information indicating the operational status, it may be discovered through a message published by the network provider of a particular resource that the resource will be operating at a lower level of redundancy due to a downtime for maintenance work. As a remedial measure, a temporary additional resource may then be obtained. This additional resource is able to take over the traffic of the affected resource, thereby restoring the redundancy level of this resource to the desired level. Thus, the information indicating the operational status of the identified resource may include a planned maintenance outage for any equipment necessary to provide the resource.

[0023] In another example, during the process of acquiring information, it may be discovered that the transmission of a particular signal was unsuccessful and errors appear in the error log. This may be a first indication that the resources required to transmit those signals are unavailable. Further exploration may reveal that the resource in question is indeed unavailable. Alternative ways of transmitting the signal may then be arranged. In particular, when acquiring communication resources from one or more network providers, acquiring new resources through a machine may be as easy as issuing an API call to the network provider.

[0024] In particular, in more complex systems comprising many communication resources, the allocation between signals and communication resources does not need to be static. For example, depending on the workload, signals may be routed via different communication resources at different times. Such dynamic allocation cannot be reasonably tracked by a human operator, but it can be tracked by a machine. Thus, by monitoring the used resources by a machine, the probability is increased that the faulty resource is correctly identified in case of a transmission failure, and the remedial activities evaluated are targeted to the correct problem. In particular, unnecessary delays may result if notifications about failures and / or degradations are sent to the wrong network provider, whose network is not relevant to the current problem in the control and / or monitoring.

[0025] For example, the evaluation of at least one remedial action may include simulation of the reliability of the control and / or monitoring under the assumption that the candidate remedial action is implemented. A plurality of candidate remedial actions may be tested, and the remedial action that best improves the reliability of the control and / or monitoring based on the simulation promise may be selected for implementation.

[0026] In a particularly advantageous embodiment, evaluating at least one remediation activity comprises:

[0027] Determine the importance of each signal transmission to controlling and / or monitoring normal operation;

[0028] • Based on the determined importance of each signal, prioritize remedial actions that may improve and / or restore signal transmission reliability.

[0029] Certain events may prevent multiple signals from being transmitted simultaneously, and it may not be possible to restore connectivity for all signals simultaneously. For example, if a fiber optic Internet connection carrying a communications resource is disrupted, and a microwave backup link is available, the capacity of that microwave link will be much smaller than the fiber optic connection. Therefore, connectivity may be restored immediately for only a subset of previously transmitted signals, while it will take much longer to get the remaining signals back online. By selecting the most important signals to be rerouted via the microwave link, downtime for control and / or monitoring caused by a fiber optic connection failure may be reduced.

[0030] Additionally, if a larger outage occurs in a network infrastructure managed through an external provider, if some guidance can be provided to the external provider as to which communications resources are most critical, it may speed up the process of getting at least basic signals back online. For example, the external provider may receive a request that says, “Please focus on moving tunnel X from site A back to site B within the next hour. If tunnel Y is restored tomorrow, and tunnel Z is restored within the next three days, our production can flow smoothly.” This can be very useful if there is a widespread failure in the network and the network provider does not know where to start to minimize the damage caused by the outage to customers. For example, spare equipment for repairs may be limited and repair personnel cannot be everywhere at the same time.

[0031] For example, the importance of a signal may be determined based at least in part on one or more of the following:

[0032] The relevance of the signal's content to the control and / or monitoring of industrial processes;

[0033] · timely update of the importance of the signal to the control and / or monitoring of the industrial process; and / or

[0034] • The extent to which the signal is part of a feedback control loop in the control of an industrial process.

[0035] For example, only a subset of the measurement data captured by sensors in a process may be needed to maintain a feedback control loop, while the absence of certain other signals does not cause an immediate breakdown in control and / or monitoring. For example, automated control via one or more feedback loops may continue to operate, while high-bandwidth video streaming from monitoring cameras is temporarily suspended. The same applies to some measurements that are only acquired for archival, machine learning, or diagnostic purposes, rather than to maintain a feedback loop. In another example, video monitoring may be temporarily downgraded to a lower resolution, or to grayscale instead of color.

[0036] In one example, the signal may include at least one measurement of a state variable of an industrial process. The importance of updating the signal in a timely manner may then be based at least in part on the maximum rate of change at which the state variable can change in the context of the industrial process. For example, if the thermal mass of a reactor vessel slows changes in the temperature inside the vessel to a time scale of seconds, it is not absolutely necessary to update the temperature measurement every 100 milliseconds. In contrast, the pressure in the vessel may increase more rapidly because there is no inertia corresponding to the thermal mass to overcome. Therefore, it is more important to obtain an updated value of the pressure within a short period of time.

[0037] Thus, in a particularly advantageous embodiment, the industrial process is a chemical process.A signal comprising a measured value of pressure is assigned a higher importance for timely updating than a signal comprising a measured value of temperature.

[0038] The prioritization of remedial activities is not limited to restoring and / or improving the reliability of the entire signal. There may be situations where some small parts of the signal are more important for maintaining control and / or monitoring activities than the rest of the large part. Therefore, in another advantageous embodiment, the prioritization of remedial activities may specifically include:

[0039] · obtaining a reduced quality and reduced volume version of at least one signal;

[0040] improving and / or restoring the reliability of the transmission of said version with degraded quality takes precedence over improving and / or restoring the reliability of the transmission of the original signal and / or over improving and / or restoring the reliability of the transmission of supplementary information which together with the degraded quality version allows reconstruction of the original signal.

[0041] In the example of a fiber optic Internet connection failure, large amounts of color surveillance imagery can be switched to lower resolution and / or grayscale for transmission over a backup microwave link.

[0042] For example, obtaining a reduced quality and reduced volume version of the signal may include one or more of the following:

[0043] Downsample the signal;

[0044] Rounding or clipping values ​​in the signal to lower precision;

[0045] Compress the signal using a lossy compression algorithm;

[0046] • Removing color information from at least one image in the signal.

[0047] For images, downsampling can be related to reducing the pixel resolution in each frame and / or reducing the frame rate per second. For time series data, downsampling can be related to increasing the time interval between consecutive values ​​in the time series.

[0048] In another advantageous embodiment, the remedial action may include changing the control of the industrial process so as to reduce the demand for at least one identified communication resource, and / or the redundancy requirement regarding at least one identified resource. In this way, the industrial process can remain operational even when it is not possible to restore communications to full bandwidth and / or full reliability. In the example of a fiber optic connection being disconnected, after switching to a microwave link, no more redundancy is available because no other physical link is connected to the outside. The industrial process can then be downgraded to an operating mode that can operate without redundancy. For example, the production rate can be limited to a rate that can be safely operated even without redundancy, and / or the batches can be reduced so that a smaller amount of explosive intermediates are present in the process at any time.

[0049] In another particularly advantageous embodiment, at least one virtual alarm object corresponding to the signaled and / or identified resource is created in a distributed control system DCS of the industrial process. In this way, the communication infrastructure can be monitored by the DCS similarly to assets managed entirely by operators of controllers, but without the need to mirror the entire physical infrastructure behind the communication resources into the DCS. Such a mirroring would confuse the DCS, and its operators might not be able to understand and / or use the details. Furthermore, most network providers do not disclose the details of their physical infrastructure to their customers, so mirroring to the DCS is simply not possible.

[0050] Advantageously, in response to a failure of the identified resource causing other alarms in the DCS, the virtual alarm object can take precedence over other alarm objects associated with the other alarms. In this way, the operator's attention can be focused on restoring the lost connection if this is the root cause of other problems. In particular, if there is a problem with an externally provided network infrastructure, it is advantageous to contact the provider as soon as possible because repairs may take longer than repairs of local assets.

[0051] In another particularly advantageous embodiment, the provider of the identified communication resources converts at least one remedial activity associated with at least one identified resource into a remedial activity associated with the hardware and / or software used to provide the resource. For example, the provider can be informed that a specific purchased individual connection time slot from the source to the destination is not working. Then, only on the provider's side, rather than on the customer's (here: the operator of control and / or monitoring) side, it is known which assets are being used to provide the resource. For example, these assets can include various fixed-line phones, microwave links, and network equipment (such as switches or routers). In particular, the public land mobile communication network has a rather complex hierarchical structure, which includes a backhaul network, one or more mid-range networks with baseband units, and multiple remote radio units. All of these complexities are hidden from the DCS. For the DCS, the entire mobile network can appear as a "virtual switch" in a time-sensitive network TSN. But given that the abstract communication resource does not work, the provider of the network can find out which link or which network equipment is the cause of the problem.

[0052] In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the communication system comprises a subscription to a public cellular network with or without guaranteed quality of service, and / or a subscription to a private network slice on a public cellular network with a service level agreement. Although the network is a public network, the entire network core or a part thereof, such as a packet gateway, may be private. For example, the public cellular network may be a 5G public land mobile communication network. The private slice appears as its own network to the operator for control and / or monitoring, while being provided by the infrastructure that also carries the public 5G network. In the context of 5G, it is foreseeable that the user of the private network slice will obtain some abstract diagnostic information about the slice that can be used to feed a virtual alarm object in the DCS. For example, the 5G network can inform the user that the redundancy level SLA agreed in the service level agreement is temporarily unavailable. But the user can never see the internal structure of the 5G network.

[0053] These methods can be implemented in whole or in part by a computer. Therefore, the present invention also provides one or more computer programs with machine-readable instructions, which, when executed on one or more computers, cause one or more computers to perform the above methods. In particular, the virtualization platform and one or more hardware controllers can be regarded as computers.

[0054] The present invention also provides one or more non-transitory storage media and / or download products with the one or more computer programs. Download products are products that can be sold in an online store to be immediately realized by downloading. The present invention also provides one or more computers with the one or more computer programs and / or with the one or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media and / or download products.

[0055] The present invention provides the following further advantages:

[0056] Following trends such as OPAS in automation, Docker / Kubernetes or 5G may break the tight coupling between DCS and DCS infrastructure, as deterministic computing and connectivity are provided through 3rd party systems. Keeping today’s DCS and infrastructure deeply integrated during plant operations, for example to create system alarms for critical network conditions, we first create virtual system alarms or event sources in the DCS when a signal connection is requested and trigger them from events in the infrastructure.

[0057] Currently, core control and system alarms and events are tightly coupled parts of the DCS. With open system architectures such as OPAF, virtual container runtime environments such as Docker or Kubernetes, or new connectivity ecosystems such as 5G, this coupling is broken: the DCS and the communications infrastructure become independent systems, and insight into the status of mission-critical system assets from the DCS is lost.

[0058] The virtual system alarm and event sources we generate are not related to communication / computing devices, but to logical components of the control application, such as function blocks (running on computing nodes) or signals (running on network nodes). When a request is made to execute a function or a signal is transmitted from infrastructure management, we also subscribe to state change events of related assets (monitored by external management systems). When an event notification is received, the corresponding system alarm or event is raised in the DCS.

[0059] Currently, system alarms and events are directly associated with system assets such as controllers, IO modules, fieldbus masters, etc. By breaking the coupling of control and infrastructure, the coupling of system alarms and events with infrastructure assets must also be broken and replaced with something new and exciting. We also go beyond basic event mapping because we introduce OT-specific alarm and event concepts, especially the introduction of alarm states and acknowledgments.

[0060] System alarms and events are generated locally through runtime or network infrastructure management.

[0061] Before an event occurs, runtime or network infrastructure management provides (upon execution / connection request or private request) a list of monitored assets that could be the root cause of future potential alarms or events. This allows the DCS to create a virtual alarm or event source for each system asset and perform alarm or event aggregation during operation.

[0062] Runtime or network infrastructure management performs root cause analysis and provides an identifier of the responsible asset along with the root cause, recommendations and possible planned actions for each incident it provides. If the exact responsible asset and root cause cannot be provided, a list of potential responsible assets and root causes can be provided.

[0063] At this point, the CMMS as a third type of system should be involved in supporting further root cause analysis through manual or automated inspections (e.g., using drones) to eliminate the root cause through repair or replacement, and keep the DCS users informed of the status and schedule of these activities.

[0064] Since the runtime or communication infrastructure is not aware of the distinction between alarms and events in the DCS and other OT domain specific attributes such as severity, the practice of operators (or operator assistants) acknowledging such alarms is unknown. To remedy this, a virtual alarm source with a status is introduced on the DCS side, which is created or set when an infrastructure event mapped to a system alarm goes up, but can be acknowledged in a traditional way, regardless of any awareness in infrastructure management.

[0065] As an alternative, we explicitly introduce the OT concepts of alarms and events into the infrastructure management of connected or computing systems such as 5G core networks, Docker or Kubernetes. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0066] In the following, the invention is explained using the accompanying drawings without intending to limit the scope of the invention. The accompanying drawings show:

[0067] Figure 1 : An exemplary embodiment of a method 100 for monitoring a communication system;

[0068] Figure 2 : An exemplary arrangement for controlling an industrial process 2 by means of a communication system 1;

[0069] Figure 3 : Illustration of the communication system 1 area and the plant operator O area. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0070] Figure 1 is a schematic flow chart of an embodiment of a method 100 for monitoring a communication system 1. The method 100 starts from a situation where an industrial process 2 is to be controlled and / or monitored, and such control and / or monitoring involves the use of the communication system 1.

[0071] In step 110 , a set of signals 31 - 33 that need to be transmitted via the communication system 1 for proper operation of the control and / or monitoring is identified.

[0072] In step 120, for each signal 31-33 from the identified set of signals, one or more resources 11a-11c of the communication system 1 required for transmitting the signal 31-33 are identified.

[0073] In step 130, information 12a-12c indicative of an operational state of the identified resources 11a-11c is obtained.

[0074] In step 140, based on the acquired information 12a-12c, at least one remediation activity 4 is evaluated. When the remediation activity 4 is performed on at least one resource 11a-11c and / or on the control and / or monitoring, the remediation activity 4 may improve and / or restore the reliability of the control and / or monitoring.

[0075] According to box 141, the evaluation 140 of remedial activities can include determining the importance of the transmission of each signal 31-33 for the normal operation of the control and / or monitoring. According to box 142, remedial activities that may improve and / or restore the transmission reliability of the signals 31-33 can then be prioritized based on the determined importance of the respective signals 31-33.

[0076] According to block 142a, a quality-reduced and volume-reduced version of at least one signal 31-33 may be obtained. According to block 142b, improving and / or restoring the transmission reliability of the quality-reduced version may then take precedence over improving and / or restoring the transmission reliability of

[0077] · Original signals 31-33, and / or

[0078] - Supplementary information which together with the quality reduced version allows reconstruction of the original signal 31-33.

[0079] In step 180 , at least one remedial measure 4 associated with at least one identified resource 11a - 11c may be converted by a provider of the identified resource 11a - 11c into a remedial measure 7 associated with hardware and / or software 13 - 15 for providing the resource 11a - 11c .

[0080] In step 150, at least one virtual alarm object 6 may be created in the distributed control system DCS 5 of the industrial process 2, corresponding to the signal 31-33 and / or the identified resource 11a-11c. It may then be checked in step 160 whether the identified resource 11a-11c causes other alarms in the DCS 5. If this is the case (true value 1), then in step 170 the corresponding virtual alarm object may take precedence over alarm objects related to other alarms.

[0081] Figure 2 An exemplary arrangement for controlling an industrial process 2 by means of a communication system 1 is shown.

[0082] The distributed control system 5 comprises a first part 5a located at a location where the industrial process 2 is running and a second part 5b remote from the location. The communication of signals 31-33 between the two parts 5a and 5b is performed via resources 11a-11c provided by the communication system 1. Figure 2 In the example shown, communication system 1 is a private slice of a 5G network. The 5G network includes

[0083] A backhaul 13 with routers 13a and switches 13b providing a time sensitive network TSN interface to the DCS 5;

[0084] A mid-range 14 having a baseband unit 14a;

[0085] • Fronthaul 15 with remote radio unit 15a.

[0086] All these devices are monitored by the monitoring entity 12. When a fault 16 occurs somewhere in the system and the functionality of the provided resource 11a-11c is affected, the monitoring entity can inform the DCS 5 that the resource 11a-11c is unavailable, but has nothing to do with the lower level fault 16 that caused the unavailability. The unavailability will then be displayed in a virtual alarm object 6 in the DCS 5.

[0087] Figure 3 Partially overlapping areas of the communication system 1 and the plant operator O are shown. Details about the hardware and software 13-15 of the communication system 1 are only in the area of ​​the communication system 1 and are hidden from the plant operator O. The industrial process 2 and the DCS 5 are completely in the area of ​​the plant operator O. The DCS 5 uses resources 11a-11c provided by the communication system 1, which are the interface between the two areas. In addition, if the resources 11a-11c are not available, the monitoring entity 12 of the communication system 1 notifies the DCS 5 by means of information 12a-12c, thereby triggering a virtual alarm object 6 in the DCS.

[0088] Reference numerals list

[0089] 1 Communication system

[0090] 11a-11c Resources provided by communication system 1

[0091] 12 Monitoring entity of communication system 1

[0092] 12a-12c Information about the operating status of resources 11a-11c

[0093] 13 Backhaul of communication system 1

[0094] 13a Backhaul 13 router

[0095] 13b Converter for return 13

[0096] 14 Communication system 1 mid-range

[0097] 14a Mid-range 14 baseband unit

[0098] 15 Prequel of Communication System 1

[0099] 15a Fronthaul 15 Remote Radio Unit

[0100] 16 Error in communication system 1

[0101] 2 Industrial Processes

[0102] 31-33 Signals for controlling and / or monitoring process 2

[0103] 4 Remedial actions taken on resources 11a-11c

[0104] 5 Distributed Control System, DCS

[0105] 5a The first part of DCS 5 at the location of process 2

[0106] 5b DCS 5 Second part of the remote location of process 2

[0107] 6 Virtual Alarm Objects in DCS 5

[0108] 7 Remedial measures performed in communication system 1

[0109] 100 Method for monitoring communication system 1

[0110] 110 Identification signal 31-33

[0111] 120 identifies the resources 11a-11c used to transmit the signals 31-33

[0112] 130 Obtain status information 12a-12c of resources 11a-11c

[0113] 140 Evaluate remediation actions 4 from status information 12a-12c

[0114] 141 Determine the importance of signals 31-33

[0115] 142 Prioritize remediation activities4

[0116] 142a Get a reduced quality version of signal 31-33

[0117] 142b Prioritize reduced quality versions of signals 31-33

[0118] 150 Create virtual alarm object 6

[0119] 160 Check whether fault 16 causes other alarms

[0120] 170 Prioritize virtual alarm object 6 over other alarms

[0121] 180 Convert remedy 4 to remedy 7

[0122] O Plant Operator.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method (100) for monitoring a communication system (1) for controlling and / or monitoring at least one industrial process (2), the method comprising the following steps: identifying (110) a set of signals (31-33) that need to be transmitted via the communication system (1) for normal operation of the control and / or monitoring; For each signal (31-33) of the identified set of signals, identifying (120) one or more resources (11a-11c) of the communication system (1) required for transmitting the signal (31-33); Acquiring (130) information (12a-12c) indicative of an operational state of the identified resource (11a-11c); as well as At least one remedial action (4) is evaluated (140) from the acquired information (12a-12c), which remedial action, when executed on at least one resource (11a-11c) and / or when executed on the control and / or monitoring, is capable of improving and / or restoring the reliability of the control and / or monitoring.

2. The method (100) of claim 1, wherein at least one resource (11a-11c) of the communication system (1) comprises a service providing data transmission from a predetermined source to a predetermined destination with a predetermined bandwidth and / or a predetermined quality of service.

3. The method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 2, wherein the remedial action (4) comprises one or more of the following: sending a notification about a failure and / or degradation of at least one resource (11a-11c) to a provider of the resource (11a-11c); Acquiring additional resources (11a-11c) capable of taking over traffic from a particular resource (11a-11c) to provide redundancy; and Traffic is offloaded from one resource (11a-11c) to at least one other resource (11a-11c).

4. The method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 2, wherein evaluating (140) the at least one remediation action (4) comprises: determining (141) the importance of the transmission of each signal (31-33) for the proper operation of the control and / or monitoring; as well as Based on the determined importance of the respective signals (31-33), remedial actions (4) that can improve and / or restore the reliability of transmission of the signals (31-33) are prioritized (142).

5. The method (100) of claim 4, wherein the importance of the signal is determined based at least in part on one or more of: the relevance of the content of the signals (31-33) for the control and / or monitoring of the industrial process (2); the importance of timely updating of the signal (31-33) for the control and / or monitoring of the industrial process (2); and / or The extent to which the signals (31-33) act as part of a feedback control loop in the control of the industrial process (2).

6. A method (100) according to claim 5, wherein the signal (31-33) includes at least one measured value of a state variable of the industrial process (2), and the importance of timely updating of the signal (31-33) is at least partially based on the maximum conversion rate at which the state variable can change in the environment of the industrial process (2).

7. The method (100) according to claim 6, wherein the industrial process (2) is a chemical process and wherein signals (31-33) comprising pressure measurements are assigned a higher importance for timely updating than signals (31-33) comprising temperature measurements.

8. The method (100) of claim 4, wherein prioritizing (142) the remediation activities (4) specifically comprises: acquiring (142a) a reduced quality and reduced volume version of at least one signal (31-33); and Prioritize improving and / or restoring the reliability of the transmission of the degraded version over improving and / or restoring the reliability of the transmission of the original signal, and / or over improving and / or restoring the reliability of the transmission of supplementary information which together with the degraded version allows reconstruction of the original signal (31-33).

9. The method of claim 8, wherein acquiring (142a) a reduced quality and reduced volume version of the signal (100) comprises one or more of: Downsampling the signal (31-33); Rounding or clipping the values ​​in the signals (31-33) to a lower precision; compressing the signal (31-33) using a lossy compression algorithm; and Color information is removed from at least one image in the signal (31-33).

10. A method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 2, wherein the remedial activity (4) comprises changing the control of the industrial process (2) so that the demand for at least one identified resource (11a-11c) and / or the redundancy requirement regarding at least one identified resource (11a-11c) is reduced.

11. The method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 2, further comprising: At least one virtual alarm object (6) corresponding to the signal (31-33) and / or the identified resource (11a-11c) is created (150) in a distributed control system DCS (5) of the industrial process (2).

12. The method (100) according to claim 11, further comprising: In response to a failure (16) of the identified resource (11a-11c), other alarms are raised (160) in the DCS (5), causing the virtual alarm object (6) to take precedence (170) over alarm objects associated with the other alarms.

13. The method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 2, further comprising: At least one remedial action (4) associated with at least one identified resource (11a-11c) is converted (180) by a provider of the identified resource (11a-11c) into a remedial action (7) associated with hardware and / or software (13-15) used to provide the resource (11a-11c).

14. A method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 2, wherein the communication system (1) comprises a subscription to a public cellular network with or without a guaranteed quality of service, and / or a subscription to a private network slice on a public cellular network with a service level agreement.

15. One or more computer program products comprising machine readable instructions which, when executed on one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform the method (100) according to any one of claims 1 to 14.

16. A non-transitory storage medium and / or download product having one or more computer program products according to claim 15.

17. One or more computers with one or more computer program products according to claim 15 and / or with a non-transitory storage medium and / or a download product according to claim 16.

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