Industrial IDE Notifications for Parallel Automation Development
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial automation systems face inefficiencies in collaborative development environments, requiring separate configuration tools for different aspects of the system, leading to piecemeal design and significant debugging efforts, and lack support for integrated, multi-discipline programming.
Innovation Solution
An integrated development environment (IDE) that supports collaborative, cloud-based development of industrial applications, allowing multiple developers to work on a project in parallel, with features like brokering between design inputs, notifications, and a common data model for consistency, using automation objects and predefined code modules.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If separate configuration tools are used for different aspects of the system, then each tool can be optimized for its specific function, but the overall system integration becomes complex and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple separate configuration tools into a single integrated development environment that can handle different configuration aspects (control logic, HMI, device configuration) within one unified platform, eliminating the need for separate tools and reducing integration complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated development environment provides multi-functional capabilities to perform various configuration tasks (programming, visualization design, device configuration, debugging) through a single system, making the configuration process easier while maintaining comprehensive functionality
2Productivity
If multiple developers work on the same project simultaneously, then productivity increases, but coordination and consistency become difficult to maintain
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a notification mechanism that automatically alerts developers when their work is affected by changes made by other developers, providing real-time feedback to maintain project consistency while enabling parallel development
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated development environment acts as an intermediary that manages multiple developers' work, tracking changes, resolving conflicts, and maintaining a consistent project state through centralized control and coordination mechanisms
3Reliability
If comprehensive debugging is performed across all system aspects, then system reliability improves, but the debugging time and effort increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges debugging capabilities across different configuration aspects (control logic, HMI, device configuration) into a unified debugging process, allowing comprehensive system validation without the need for separate extensive debugging sessions for each component
Data Source
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AI summary
An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) supports collaborative tools that allow multiple designers and programmers to remotely submit design input to the same automation system project in parallel while maintaining project consistency. The industrial IDE also permits localized development of system projects, and provides an infrastructure for intelligently brokering between conflicting edits submitted to common portions of the system project. To facilitate effective collaboration via efficient communication between developers, the IDE system can be configured to send push notifications to personal client devices in response to relevant events originating within the development environment relating to development of an automation system project.