Modular Integration Connectors for Cross-Ecosystem Automation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current automation systems face challenges in interoperability and efficiency due to the lack of standards for building and maintaining digital twins, leading to cumbersome integration of automation functions across different ecosystems with proprietary interfaces and tools.
Innovation Solution
The method involves generating specific integration connectors using a modular connector printer based on interface files, enabling interoperability between various ecosystems by defining semantics and domain-specific interfaces, allowing actions to be triggered across multiple ecosystems.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If vendor-specific proprietary interfaces and tools are used for each automation ecosystem, then each ecosystem can maintain its own specific capabilities and semantics, but integration between different ecosystems becomes cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer consisting of standardized digital twins and integration connectors that mediate between vendor-specific automation ecosystems. These digital twins maintain ecosystem-specific semantics and capabilities while providing a common interface for cross-ecosystem communication, thereby preserving adaptability while reducing integration complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates universal digital twin models that can represent different types of automation equipment across multiple vendor ecosystems using a common structure. This universal representation allows the same digital twin framework to handle diverse equipment types and ecosystems, reducing the need for ecosystem-specific integration approaches
2Reliability
If each vendor establishes proprietary interfaces and tools for digital twins, then vendor-specific functionality can be optimized, but interoperability and exchangeability among digital twins are inhibited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing digital twins to maintain vendor-specific properties and semantics at the local level while conforming to a standardized global structure. Each digital twin can have ecosystem-specific attributes and behaviors customized to vendor requirements, while simultaneously adhering to common interface standards that enable interoperability across vendors
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the digital twin architecture into standardized core components and vendor-specific extension components. The core digital twin model follows universal standards for basic functionality and interoperability, while vendor-specific capabilities are implemented as modular extensions, allowing both standardized interoperability and optimized vendor functionality
3Adaptability or versatility
If manual integration methods are used to connect different automation ecosystems, then custom integration requirements can be met, but the process becomes cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by pre-defining standardized digital twin models and integration connectors that encapsulate common integration patterns. These pre-configured components can be directly applied to standard integration scenarios, eliminating the need for manual customization and significantly reducing integration time while maintaining adaptability through configurable parameters
Data Source
AI summary
Current approaches to integrating industrial ecosystems, for instance integrating automation functions across different vendors, lack efficiencies and capabilities. For example, system integrators are often required to develop special software that functions as a proxy or adaptor between different systems. In such cases, the proxy or adaptor is often specific to a particular set of equipment or vendors, and which can limit reusability, among other technical drawbacks. Embodiments described herein overcome one or more of the described-herein shortcomings or technical problems by providing methods, systems, and apparatuses for automatically generating connecters that enable interoperability between different ecosystems in automated industrial systems, and that define semantics that are specific to a given ecosystem. Further, such connectors can be re-used by the given ecosystem.