Remote Support Tool Function Plan Translation

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Solution Overview

Problem

Remote maintenance services face challenges in providing a seamless user experience due to varying network data rates, as industrial sites often have limited high-data-rate connectivity, leading to degraded performance and user frustration.

Innovation Solution

The system employs an identifier-mapper-unit and function-mapper-unit to translate function descriptions into device-specific operations and identifiers, allowing for efficient communication and maintenance tasks to be performed even with low data rates, by using a combination of description associations and translation associations stored on the user apparatus and service center, ensuring that function plans are understandable and executable regardless of network conditions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If remote support services transmit detailed function descriptions and operational data over the network, then the user experience and maintenance accuracy are improved, but the network data rate requirement increases, making the system unusable in low-data-rate environments

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvefunction description transmission completenessVSAvoidnetwork data rate
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSSpeed

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the function description into two parts: identifiers (transmitted over network) and detailed descriptions (stored locally). This segmentation allows the system to transmit only essential reference data over the network while keeping detailed information locally available, thereby reducing network data rate requirements while maintaining complete information access for maintenance tasks

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements preliminary action by storing function descriptions and operational data locally on the user device before network transmission is needed. This pre-stored local information serves as a reference that can be accessed offline or with minimal network bandwidth, enabling maintenance personnel to perform tasks even in low-data-rate environments while still benefiting from remote support capabilities

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP3168793B1Remote user support tool
Publication Date: 2020.08.26 ABB (SCHWEIZ) AG
  • EP3168793B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3168793B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3168793B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

To provide as data rate independent user experience as possible for remote service, function descriptions are associated with identifiers, and a function plan transmitted between a service center and a user apparatus comprises the identifiers but the function plan outputted in the user apparatus comprises the function descriptions.