Role-Based Variable Publication for Secure External Control Access

The patent segments the namespace into multiple groups, where each group contains a subset of variables. Users can selectively publish specific groups to external devices rather than publishing all variables in the namespace. This segmentation allows fine-grained control over data accessibility while maintaining security by limiting exposure to only necessary variables.

The patent applies different publication settings to different groups within the namespace. Each group can have its own publication status and access permissions, allowing local customization of data accessibility. This enables security-sensitive variables to be excluded from publication while allowing other variables to be accessed freely.

The patent merges multiple variables into groups, allowing users to set publication permissions at the group level rather than individually for each variable. This combining approach significantly reduces the number of setting operations required while maintaining fine-grained security control through selective group publication.

The patent creates publication setting groups that can serve multiple purposes: they can contain variables with similar security requirements, represent functional modules, or group variables by access priority. This multi-functionality allows a single group setting to control access to multiple variables simultaneously, simplifying the overall configuration process.