Industrial IDE Telemetry for Multi-Discipline Control Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial automation systems face challenges in integrated design and configuration due to the need for separate development environments for different aspects of the system, leading to piecemeal design approaches and significant testing and debugging efforts to ensure proper integration.
Innovation Solution
An integrated development environment (IDE) that provides a common platform for designing, programming, and configuring multiple aspects of an industrial automation system, using a user interface component, project generation component, project telemetry component, and project analysis component to generate system project data, telemetry data, and design recommendations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If separate development environments are used for different aspects of the industrial automation system, then each aspect can be developed independently, but the overall system integration becomes complex and requires significant testing and debugging efforts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple separate development environments (control programming, visualization design, device configuration) into a single integrated development environment. This unified IDE allows users to access and work with all development tools through one interface, eliminating the need to switch between separate applications and automatically managing the integration of different system aspects.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated development environment provides universal access to multiple development functions including control programming, visualization design, device configuration, and system debugging. A single IDE instance can handle all these tasks simultaneously, allowing one tool to serve multiple purposes that previously required separate specialized applications.
2Ease of manufacture
If separate development environments are used for different aspects of the industrial automation system, then specialized tools can be used for each aspect, but debugging and testing efforts increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple specialized development tools into a single integrated environment that maintains the specialized capabilities of each tool while eliminating the time lost to switching between applications. The IDE provides unified access to control programming, visualization, and device configuration tools, allowing seamless integration work without repeated context switching.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated development environment performs preliminary integration checks and automatically generates system configuration data before final deployment. By preparing and validating the integrated system architecture upfront within the IDE, the system reduces the need for extensive post-deployment testing and debugging.
3Productivity
If an integrated development environment is used for all aspects of the control system, then design efficiency improves through unified management, but the system requires more complex architecture to support multiple disciplines
Solution Approach 1:
The integrated development environment is organized into distinct functional modules or workspaces, each handling a specific aspect of system development (control programming, visualization, device configuration). This segmentation allows the complex IDE to present a simplified, organized interface to users while managing the underlying architectural complexity through modular design.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a central project management component that acts as an intermediary between the various development tools and the final system output. This mediator coordinates the work across different disciplines, manages the integration of various configuration data, and handles the generation of unified system code, thereby managing architectural complexity behind the scenes.
Data Source
AI summary
An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) includes analytic features that generate control project telemetry data based on analysis of a control system design and uses this project telemetry data as the basis for control system design guidance and recommendations. The IDE system can analyze the control system design and identify industrial devices use by the control project, device features that are utilized by the control project, resource utilizations, and other such project telemetry. The IDE system can generate recommendations for improving the control system design based on this project telemetry. The project telemetry data can also be provided to product vendors, offering insights into how the vendors' products are being used by end customers.