Industrial weighing system

Abstract

The utility model discloses an industrial weighing system which comprises a monitoring unit, a communication unit, a gateway unit and a weighing device. The monitoring unit is connected with a first connecting end of the communication unit; the second connecting end of the communication unit is connected with the first connecting end of the gateway unit; the second connecting end of the gateway unit is connected with the plurality of weighing devices; and the communication unit comprises a PROFINET industrial communication board card. According to the industrial weighing system, the PROFINET technology is introduced, so that the technical problems of non-real-time communication network, large data transmission delay and network reliability in the existing industrial weighing system are solved; and the communication unit adopts a PROFINET industrial communication board card based on a PC (Personal Computer), so that data from the system can directly enter the gateway unit, the problem that secondary transmission is needed for data separation between upper computer software (a monitoring unit) and a PLC (a control unit) in the background technology is solved, and finally, the development, deployment and maintenance costs of the whole system are reduced.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The utility model belongs to the technical field of industrial weighing systems, and in particular relates to an industrial weighing system. Background Art

[0002] Industrial weighing equipment refers to equipment used to measure the weight of objects at industrial sites, which can convert the weight signal measured by the weighing sensor into a standard electrical signal. With the development of the manufacturing industry, many automated productions require the control of weighing equipment, such as quantitative control, sorting, and weight checking of filling materials in food and beverage processing production lines, and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries have high accuracy and precision requirements for the weight of added materials. The logistics and transportation industry uses dynamic weighing for sorting. Therefore, for weighing equipment, access to automated control systems has become an inevitable trend, and the networking trend of weighing equipment requires it to communicate with the control system. The object weight information collected by the industrial weighing equipment usually needs to be transmitted to other devices or the upper-level control system through its external industrial communication interface. At the same time, the industrial weighing equipment also needs to receive commands from the upper-level control system to achieve the purpose of automated control and form a complete industrial weighing system.

[0003] Traditional industrial weighing systems usually consist of three parts: industrial weighing equipment, PLC (programmable logic controller) and computer-based host software. The industrial weighing equipment is used to collect material weight data on site, and the PLC is used to control the industrial weighing equipment and process weight data. The two use serial bus communication methods such as RS485 and Modbus RTU to exchange data. The host software is connected to the system through a local area network or serial port to observe the data transmitted in the network or send control instructions. The system topology is as follows: Figure 1 As shown. In this system structure, the host computer software (monitoring unit) and the PLC controller (control unit) are separated from each other, and developers are required to independently develop the PLC control program and the host computer software program, which is difficult to develop, has low system integration and high system maintenance costs. In addition, since the communication method of the local area network is not real-time, the data transmission delay is large, resulting in the data observed on the host computer software cannot be refreshed in real time. Obviously, it is impossible to achieve precise control in applications that require higher precision. Secondly, in today's industrial development, the industrial network is gradually transforming from fieldbus to industrial Ethernet, and the traditional industrial weighing system underlying equipment relies on RS485 and Modbus RTU serial communication. Therefore, there are problems such as slow communication speed, large external interference in data transmission, inability to transmit over long distances, and inability to connect to the existing industrial Ethernet network. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new industrial weighing system that can overcome the problems of non-real-time communication network, large data transmission delay, and poor network reliability.

[0004] The patent application with application number "201911290600.5" discloses a method for accessing the PROFINET protocol in industrial SDN, and gives the specific processing process of the message type in the industrial software-defined network switch and controller during the access process of the PROFINET industrial Ethernet protocol in the industrial software-defined network, and points out the specific matching method of the flow table matching items in the SDN network. In actual application scenarios, it can meet the plug-and-play of PROFINET devices. However, the patent cannot meet the communication needs of industrial weighing equipment for the use of PROFINET in industrial software-defined networks. Utility Model Content

[0005] The purpose of the utility model is to provide an industrial weighing system, which can solve the technical problems of non-real-time communication network, large data transmission delay and poor network reliability existing in the existing industrial weighing system by improving the communication architecture between the control terminal and the weighing equipment.

[0006] In order to achieve the above utility model purpose, the technical solution adopted by the utility model is as follows:

[0007] An industrial weighing system comprises a monitoring unit, a communication unit, a gateway unit and a weighing device; the monitoring unit is connected to a first connection end of the communication unit; a second connection end of the communication unit is connected to a first connection end of the gateway unit; a second connection end of the gateway unit is connected to a plurality of the weighing devices; and the communication unit comprises a PROFINET industrial communication board.

[0008] The utility model is an industrial weighing system, the communication unit includes a PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board, which is different from the system architecture in which the PLC and the host computer software are separated in the background technology. The PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board and the monitoring unit can run on the same computer hardware platform, and the two sets of processing programs are also integrated in the same software. The data obtained by the industrial communication board is directly processed in the monitoring unit, which further improves the integration of the system, and also reduces the mutual data conversion time, reduces the difficulty of system development and maintenance, simplifies the network communication architecture, and the whole system can be applied in scenes with higher requirements for precision and accuracy. Therefore, there will be no problem of data separation between the host computer software (monitoring unit) and the PLC controller (control unit) in the background technology that requires secondary transmission, which can solve the technical problems of non-real-time communication network, large data transmission delay, and poor network reliability in the existing industrial weighing system.

[0009] Preferably, the monitoring unit includes an industrial computer; the industrial computer includes a PCIe slot; the industrial communication board includes a PCIe bus interface; the industrial communication board is installed in the PCIe slot via the PCIe bus interface.

[0010] The utility model discloses an industrial weighing system, wherein the industrial communication board comprises a network port for supporting PROFINET communication and a PCIe interface that can be fixedly installed on an industrial computer. By flashing the PROFINET protocol stack firmware, the board can be used as a PROFINET master station, and a dynamic link library for secondary development is provided for the Windows system, which can be easily integrated with other software.

[0011] Preferably, the gateway unit includes a data acquisition module and a data conversion module; the data acquisition module communicates with the weighing device; and the data conversion module communicates with the industrial communication board.

[0012] Preferably, the weighing device includes a communication interface; the data acquisition module communicates with the weighing device via the communication interface.

[0013] The utility model discloses an industrial weighing system, in which the weighing equipment is used to collect the weight of materials on industrial sites and generate weighing data. The gateway unit can convert the data transmitted by the weighing equipment through RS485 / Modbus RTU into data based on PROFINET network transmission through the communication interface, data acquisition module and data conversion module.

[0014] Preferably, the monitoring unit includes a host computer and an industrial computer; the host computer runs in the industrial computer; and the host computer communicates with the industrial communication board.

[0015] Preferably, the host computer includes a configuration module; the host computer communicates with the industrial communication board through the configuration module.

[0016] The utility model discloses an industrial weighing system, wherein the monitoring unit is a host computer, the configuration module is host computer configuration software, and the communication configuration, online data receiving and sending test and communication diagnosis between a PC industrial communication board and a gateway unit are completed through the host computer configuration software.

[0017] Preferably, the host computer further includes a monitoring module; the host computer communicates with the gateway unit via the monitoring module.

[0018] The utility model provides an industrial weighing system, wherein the monitoring module is a host computer monitoring software, and the host computer monitoring software completes data processing and display in a program according to network configuration and different data offset addresses.

[0019] Preferably, the monitoring module includes an initialization submodule, a data processing submodule, and a display submodule; the initialization submodule, the data processing submodule, and the display submodule all communicate with the gateway unit.

[0020] The utility model discloses an industrial weighing system, wherein the upper computer monitoring software is realized based on the board driver and the Windows dynamic link library, including the board driver initialization, the board channel initialization, the PROFINET data processing and display, and realizes the remote monitoring data and the visual management.

[0021] Beneficial effects:

[0022] An industrial weighing system of the utility model:

[0023] 1. The communication unit includes a PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board. Different from the system architecture in which the PLC and the host computer software are separated in the background technology, the PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board and the monitoring unit can run on the same computer hardware platform, and the two sets of processing programs are also integrated in the same software. The data obtained by the industrial communication board is directly processed in the monitoring unit, which further improves the integration of the system, and also reduces the mutual data conversion time, reduces the difficulty of system development and maintenance, simplifies the network communication architecture, and the whole system can be applied in scenarios with higher requirements for precision and accuracy. Therefore, there will be no problem of data separation between the host computer software (monitoring unit) and the PLC controller (control unit) in the background technology that requires secondary transmission, which can solve the technical problems of non-real-time communication network, large data transmission delay, and poor network reliability in the existing industrial weighing system.

[0024] 2. The gateway unit connects the weighing equipment and the industrial communication board. Through the supporting configuration software, the communication connection configuration between the gateway unit and the weighing equipment and the data mapping configuration at both ends of the gateway are completed, so that the gateway unit can convert the data transmitted by the weighing equipment through RS485 / Modbus RTU into data based on PROFINET network transmission; and the gateway unit can collect data from multiple weighing equipment at the same time. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0025] Figure 1 Shown is a topological structure diagram of a traditional industrial weighing system in the background art;

[0026] Figure 2 Shown is a first structural block diagram of an industrial weighing system of an embodiment;

[0027] Figure 3 Shown is a second structural block diagram of an industrial weighing system of an embodiment;

[0028] Figure 4 Shown is an architecture diagram of a gateway unit of an embodiment;

[0029] Figure 5 Shown is an architectural diagram of the internal buffer of the board card protocol stack of an embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0030] In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the utility model or the technical solutions in the prior art, the specific implementation methods of the utility model will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the accompanying drawings described below are only some embodiments of the utility model. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings and other implementation methods can be obtained based on these drawings without creative work.

[0031] The technical solution of the utility model is described in detail below with specific embodiments.

[0032] Example

[0033] like Figures 2 to 5 As shown, an industrial weighing system of the present embodiment includes a monitoring unit, a communication unit, a gateway unit, and a weighing device; the output end of the monitoring unit is connected to the first connection end of the communication unit; the second connection end of the communication unit is connected to the first connection end of the gateway unit; the second connection end of the gateway unit is connected to a plurality of weighing devices; the gateway unit includes a data acquisition module and a data conversion module; the data conversion module acquires first format data of the weighing device; and the data conversion module converts the first format data into second format data.

[0034] Preferably, the communication unit comprises a PROFINET industrial communication board.

[0035] Specifically, the industrial communication board in this embodiment is a PC industrial communication board, and the PC industrial communication board is connected to the gateway unit via a network cable.

[0036] Preferably, the monitoring unit includes an industrial computer; the industrial computer includes a PCIe slot; the industrial communication board includes a PCIe bus interface; the industrial communication board is installed in the PCIe slot via the PCIe bus interface.

[0037] Preferably, the first format data includes weighing data; the second format data includes PROFINET data; the weighing equipment collects the weight of materials at the industrial site and generates weighing data.

[0038] Preferably, the weighing device includes an RS485 / Modbus RTU communication interface; and the data acquisition module collects weighing data via the RS485 / Modbus RTU communication interface.

[0039] Furthermore, the industrial weighing equipment of this system can realize the function of converting the original serial interface transmission on the equipment to PROFINET industrial Ethernet interface transmission by adding an industrial gateway for PROFINET protocol to RS485 / Modbus RTU protocol in the network without making any hardware changes, and can easily realize system upgrades. In addition, the data mapping on both sides of the gateway unit can be flexibly customized to retain key data in the system and reduce unnecessary data transmission and processing. Since the data transmission rate is inversely proportional to the transmission distance in serial communication, the gateway unit can be installed closer to the industrial weighing equipment when it is installed and applied on site, so that the data transmission baud rate of serial communication can be higher.

[0040] Preferably, the data conversion module includes a PROFINET network; the data conversion module converts the weighing data into PROFINET data via the PROFINET network.

[0041] Preferably, the monitoring unit includes a host computer and an industrial computer; the host computer runs in the industrial computer; and the host computer communicates with an industrial communication board.

[0042] Preferably, the host computer includes a configuration module; the host computer communicates with the industrial communication board through the configuration module.

[0043] Preferably, the host computer further includes a monitoring module; the host computer communicates with the gateway unit via the monitoring module.

[0044] Preferably, the monitoring module includes an initialization submodule, a data processing submodule, and a display submodule; the initialization submodule, the data processing submodule, and the display submodule all acquire PROFINET data.

[0045] Specifically, PROFINET, as an open industrial Ethernet standard defined by PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI), provides a complete network solution for the field of automation communication, covering current hot topics in the field of automation such as real-time Ethernet, motion control, distributed automation, fault safety, and network security. In addition, PROFINET divides three different communication modes according to the application requirements of industrial environments, including TCP / IP standard communication, real-time communication, and synchronous real-time communication. Therefore, PROFINET can meet all application requirements from the field layer to the management layer. One cable can complete all operations, truly realizing a one-network system, which is in line with the real-time automation system based on industrial Ethernet. Moreover, as a cross-vendor technology, PROFINET is fully compatible with industrial Ethernet and existing fieldbus technologies, protecting existing investments and ensuring long-term availability.

[0046] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, the industrial communication board includes a network port for supporting PROFINET communication and a PCIe interface that can be fixedly installed on an industrial computer. By flashing the PROFINET protocol stack firmware, it can be used as a PROFINET master station, and provides a dynamic link library for secondary development for the Windows system, which can be easily integrated with other software.

[0047] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, a weighing device collects the weight of materials at an industrial site and generates weighing data, and can transmit the generated weighing data to a gateway unit via RS485 / Modbus RTU.

[0048] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, the gateway unit can convert the data transmitted by the weighing device through RS485 / Modbus RTU into data transmitted based on the PROFINET network; and the gateway unit can simultaneously collect data from multiple weighing devices.

[0049] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, the monitoring unit is a host computer, the configuration module is the host computer configuration software, and the communication configuration, online data transmission and reception test and communication diagnosis between the PC industrial communication board and the gateway unit are completed through the host computer configuration software.

[0050] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, the monitoring module is a host computer monitoring software, and the host computer monitoring software completes data processing and display in the program according to network configuration and different data offset addresses.

[0051] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, the host computer monitoring software is implemented based on the board driver and the Windows dynamic link library, including board driver initialization, board channel initialization, PROFINET data processing and display, to achieve remote monitoring data and visual management.

[0052] Furthermore, the host computer configuration software and the host computer monitoring software of this embodiment are both host computer software, and related function interfaces are called in the program to realize data reading, writing and processing, thereby realizing remote monitoring of data.

[0053] Furthermore, the host computer software of this embodiment is an integrated software implemented by the driver and dynamic link library provided by the PC industrial communication board, which is used for remote monitoring and data processing.

[0054] Furthermore, the PC industrial communication board adopts the Hongke CIFX PC board, which includes a network port for supporting PROFINET communication and a PCIe interface that can be fixedly installed on an industrial computer. By flashing the PROFINET protocol stack firmware, it can be used as a PROFINET master station and provides a dynamic link library for secondary development for the Windows system, which can be easily integrated with other software.

[0055] Specifically, the Hongke CIFX PC board is installed in the industrial computer in the form of a PCIe interface. At the same time, the PROFINET configuration and monitoring host software is also running on the industrial computer. Therefore, there is no need to add other programmable logic controllers to independently process PROFINET data, realizing a processing platform that integrates PROFINET network control and host software.

[0056] Furthermore, the gateway unit of this embodiment is a Hilscher netTap gateway, which connects the weighing equipment and the PC industrial communication board to realize data conversion between Modbus RTU and PROFINET protocols. Through the supporting configuration software, the communication connection configuration between the gateway unit and the weighing equipment and the data mapping configuration at both ends of the gateway are completed.

[0057] Specifically, as a key network hardware component in the system, the Hilscher netTap gateway is connected to the industrial field weighing equipment through the RS485 serial interface downward, and to the industrial control layer host computer software monitoring platform through the Ethernet interface upward, ensuring that data is converted from RS485 / Modbus RTU format to PROFINET format.

[0058] Furthermore, the weighing device of this embodiment is used to collect the weight of materials at the industrial site or receive control commands from a remote host computer software, and exchange data through RS485 / Modbus RTU.

[0059] Furthermore, the gateway unit of the present embodiment is used to convert the data transmitted by the weighing device based on RS485 / Modbus RTU into PROFINET protocol data, wherein the RS485 / Modbus RTU end of the gateway unit serves as the master station of the RS485 / Modbus RTU network, and the weighing device serves as the slave station of the RS485 / Modbus RTU network. The gateway unit can simultaneously collect data from multiple weighing devices; wherein the PROFINET end of the gateway unit serves as the slave station of the PROFINET network, and the PC industrial communication board serves as the master station of the PROFINET network, and the data converted from the RS485 / Modbus RTU end is transmitted to the PC industrial communication board for processing; and the interior of the gateway unit is as shown in the attached Figure 4As shown, the RS485 / Modbus RTU end data and the PROFINET end data are internally exchanged and processed by means of memory data mapping, thereby achieving the purpose of data conversion between different protocols.

[0060] Furthermore, an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, through the introduction of a gateway unit, enables the network deployment of the industrial weighing system to be transformed from the original field bus mode to an industrial Ethernet communication mode with PROFINET as the core.

[0061] Furthermore, the PC industrial communication board of this embodiment acts as the master station of the PROFINET network, responsible for the management, monitoring, data transmission and other functions of the PROFINET network. In this embodiment, the PC industrial communication board and the industrial gateway in the system exchange data in the form of PROFINET protocol, and the data in the actual PROFINET network comes from the weighing equipment data converted from the RS485 / Modbus RTU end of the industrial gateway, or the data sent to the weighing equipment at the RS485 / Modbus RTU end through the industrial gateway. In addition, the PC industrial communication board is installed in the industrial computer through the PCIe interface, and cooperates with the upper computer software that also runs on the industrial computer, so as to realize the integrated configuration and data monitoring of the PROFINET network in the industrial weighing system.

[0062] Furthermore, the host computer software of this embodiment includes the host computer configuration software of the PC industrial communication board and the host computer monitoring software developed based on the PC industrial communication board to realize the PROFINET network configuration, PROFINET data processing and data visualization. In actual applications, the communication configuration, online data transmission and reception test and communication diagnosis between the PC industrial communication board and the industrial gateway are completed through the host computer configuration software. After that, the host computer monitoring software completes the data processing and display in the program according to the network configuration and different data offset addresses. As shown in the attached figure Figure 5 As shown in the figure, the internal buffer of the card protocol stack will refresh the data sent to PROFINET or the data from the network in each PROFINET communication cycle, and the dual-port memory will exchange data with the internal buffer in each application running cycle, so that the host computer monitoring software can collect and control PROFINET data. At the same time, the host computer monitoring software completes the initialization of the card and the periodic PROFINET data transmission and processing.

[0063] Specifically, an industrial weighing system of this embodiment converts the data originally transmitted by Modbus on the weighing equipment into PROFINET data through a gateway module, so the underlying data can be transmitted through the PROFINET network to the PROFINET master station with a PC industrial communication board as the core to realize data monitoring and management.

[0064] Specifically, an industrial weighing system of this embodiment adopts a PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board to eliminate the problem of data separation between the host computer software and the PLC controller requiring secondary transmission, thereby reducing the system development, deployment and maintenance costs, and allowing data from the system to be directly connected to the existing remote management system.

[0065] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of the present embodiment, the communication unit includes a PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board. Different from the system architecture in which the PLC and the host computer software are separated in the background technology, the PC-based PROFINET industrial communication board and the monitoring unit can run on the same computer hardware platform, and the two sets of processing programs are also integrated in the same software. The data obtained by the industrial communication board is directly processed in the monitoring unit, which further improves the system integration, reduces the data conversion time, reduces the difficulty of system development and maintenance, simplifies the network communication architecture, and the entire system can be used in scenarios with higher requirements for precision and accuracy.

[0066] Specifically, in an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, the customs gateway unit introduces PROFINET industrial Ethernet technology, realizing the transformation from traditional field / serial bus communication to Ethernet communication. PROFINET communication is responsible for uploading the data collected by the weighing equipment in the entire system and issuing the remote host computer software instructions, solving the problems of slow communication speed, data transmission being susceptible to external interference, and non-real-time data transmission caused by RS485, Modbus RTU and LAN communication. And PROFINET technology is used as the core communication network for basic communication between PROFINET slave station equipment and PROFINET master station system, realizing real-time transmission and centralized management of weighing equipment data.

[0067] Furthermore, in the traditional industrial weighing system communication network structure in the background technology, when the number of weighing devices connected to the PLC changes, the program in the PLC also needs to be readjusted and developed accordingly, which obviously brings new development costs. Through an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, when the number of devices changes, it is only necessary to change the configuration of the gateway unit in the network, and the host computer software and PROFINET data processing can always remain unchanged, which can better adapt to sudden changes in the network.

[0068] Specifically, an industrial weighing system of this embodiment, through the introduction of PROFINET technology, has greatly improved the technical problems of large data transmission delay and non-real-time communication network architecture during the upward transmission of weighing equipment data. At the same time, by integrating the PROFINET network master station control program and the host computer software into a hardware platform, it has simplified the overall network layout, reduced the difficulty of application development and the overall maintenance cost.

[0069] The PROFINET protocol, RS485 protocol, Modbus RTU protocol, PROFIBUS&

[0070] PROFINET International Organization (PI), TCP / IP standard communication, PCIe interface, Windows system, CIFX PC board, and Hilscher netTap gateway are common knowledge and will not be elaborated here.

[0071] The above is a detailed description of an embodiment of an industrial weighing system provided by the utility model. This article uses specific examples to illustrate the principle and implementation method of the utility model. The description of the above embodiments is only used to help understand the core idea of ​​the utility model. It should be pointed out that for ordinary technicians in this technical field, without departing from the principle of the utility model, the utility model can also be improved and modified, and these improvements and modifications also fall within the scope of protection of the claims of the utility model.

Claims

1. An industrial weighing system, characterized in that: It includes a monitoring unit, a communication unit, a gateway unit, and a weighing device; the monitoring unit is connected to a first connection end of the communication unit; the second connection end of the communication unit is connected to a first connection end of the gateway unit; the second connection end of the gateway unit is connected to a plurality of weighing devices; and the communication unit includes a PROFINET industrial communication board.

2. The industrial weighing system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The monitoring unit includes an industrial computer; the industrial computer includes a slot; the industrial communication board includes a bus interface; the industrial communication board is installed in the slot via the bus interface.

3. The industrial weighing system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The gateway unit includes a data acquisition module and a data conversion module; the data acquisition module communicates with the weighing device; and the data conversion module communicates with the industrial communication board.

4. The industrial weighing system according to claim 3, characterized in that: The weighing device comprises a communication interface; the data acquisition module communicates with the weighing device via the communication interface.

5. The industrial weighing system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The monitoring unit comprises a host computer and an industrial computer; the host computer runs in the industrial computer; and the host computer communicates with the industrial communication board.

6. The industrial weighing system according to claim 5, characterized in that: The host computer includes a configuration module; the host computer communicates with the industrial communication board through the configuration module.

7. The industrial weighing system according to claim 6, characterized in that: The host computer also includes a monitoring module; the host computer communicates with the gateway unit through the monitoring module.

8. The industrial weighing system according to claim 7, characterized in that: The monitoring module includes an initialization submodule, a data processing submodule, and a display submodule; the initialization submodule, the data processing submodule, and the display submodule all communicate with the gateway unit.

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