Layered Interface for Industrial Control Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial control systems face challenges in interoperability and consistency among products from different vendors, leading to complex integration and management issues, with engineers often focusing on technical details rather than functional requirements, and lacking seamless transitions during system changes.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a set of interface components across multiple layers of an industrial environment, using specifications to generate services, index functional features, and supply metadata, enabling discovery and search for compatible components, and supporting multiple platform configurations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple products from different vendors are integrated into an industrial control system, then system functionality and versatility are improved, but interoperability and consistency deteriorate, leading to complex integration and management issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal service-oriented architecture where interface components are standardized across different vendors' products. Services are defined with common specifications that enable multiple products to interact through a unified framework, allowing the system to maintain versatility while reducing integration complexity through consistent interface standards.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a service layer as an intermediary between different vendor products and the control system. This service layer provides standardized interface components that mediate communications between heterogeneous products, enabling interoperability without requiring direct integration between each product pair, thus reducing overall integration complexity.
2Ease of manufacture
If engineers focus on underlying technical details such as implementation and glue logic, then system integration is achieved, but attention to functional requirements and application level concerns deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the system into distinct layers: service definition, service implementation, and service consumption. This segmentation separates technical implementation details from functional requirements, allowing engineers to focus on functional aspects at higher levels while technical details are handled in standardized service layers, preventing distraction from application-level concerns.
Solution Approach 2:
The service layer acts as an intermediary that encapsulates technical implementation details and glue logic. Engineers can define functional requirements at the service level without needing to understand the underlying technical complexities, as the service interface abstracts away the implementation details while still enabling system integration.
3Reliability
If a comprehensive service layer is implemented across multiple layers of the industrial environment, then interoperability and consistency are improved, but system complexity and overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal service layer that provides consistent interoperability across multiple industrial environment layers. By defining standardized service interfaces and specifications that work across different layers, the system achieves reliable interoperability without requiring separate integration mechanisms for each layer, thus reducing overall architectural complexity despite the comprehensive coverage.
Data Source
AI summary
System(s) and method(s) are provided for implementing a set of interface components across a set of layers of an industrial environment, and for managing at least one interface component or at least one layer of the industrial environment. To implement an interface component in at least one layer in the set of layers, a specification that defines the interface component is acquired and, based at least on the specification, a service is generated. Execution of the service implements the interface component. The managing includes deploying or discovering the at least one interface component or the at least one layer of the industrial environment. The managing also includes indexing specific functional feature(s) of the at least one interface component and searching across the set of layers for one or more interface components that satisfy specific functional criteria. Moreover, the managing can include supplying metadata related to interface component(s) or layer(s).