Off-Premise Gateway Symbolic Access for Industrial Automation Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial automation systems face complexity in integrating new devices with existing systems due to differing communication protocols and information model formats, leading to inefficient data access and control operations.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of symbolic data operations using symbol and template object instances enables consistent reporting and control across devices with different information model formats, reducing computing resources by using labels understandable to both machines and software, thereby improving data access and processing efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional class, instance, and attribute lookup operations are used to access data from industrial automation devices, then data access can be achieved, but the system complexity increases and processing efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the essential data access functionality from complex class-instance-attribute lookup operations by introducing symbolic data operations. Symbolic operations directly reference data using symbols that represent the desired information, eliminating the need for multi-level hierarchical lookups through classes, instances, and attributes. This extraction simplifies the data access mechanism while maintaining full functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces symbolic data operations as an intermediary layer between the control system and industrial automation devices. These symbolic operations act as mediators that translate high-level data access requests into device-specific protocols, reducing system complexity by abstracting away the underlying communication details while improving access efficiency through direct symbolic referencing.
2Adaptability or versatility
If devices with different information model formats are integrated into the same system, then system versatility is improved, but data access and control operations become less efficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements universal symbolic data operations that can interface with multiple different information model formats through a single unified mechanism. The symbolic operations are designed to be format-agnostic, allowing the same symbolic data access approach to work across diverse device types and protocols, thereby maintaining versatility while improving efficiency by eliminating format-specific lookup complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter of data access from hierarchical structure-based (class-instance-attribute) to symbol-based referencing. This parameter change allows the system to adapt to different information model formats without sacrificing efficiency, as symbols directly represent the desired data regardless of the underlying format or structure of the source device.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of this present disclosure may include systems that perform operations including receiving a request to access data associated with an industrial automation device from a requesting device and identifying the industrial automation device based on the request. The operations may include sending a query for template data to the industrial automation device based on the request and receiving the template data. The operations may include determining a data structure based on the requesting device and generating the data structure based on the template data and a mapping between the data structure and the template data. The operations may additionally include sending the data structure to the requesting device.