Virtual Hardware Platform for Industrial Control Software Migration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing industrial control systems face significant challenges in adapting control software to new hardware or network changes, requiring extensive manual adjustments and increasing costs, which hinders modernization and maintenance, especially in safety-relevant applications.
Innovation Solution
A platform with a virtualized execution environment and a switching unit that decouples control logic from hardware and network connections, allowing control software to run unchanged on new hardware and adapt to different network standards with minimal intervention, using virtual hardware and a gateway for seamless communication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If control software is tightly integrated with control unit hardware and operating system, then software functionality and reliability are ensured, but hardware replacement or network changes require extensive manual software adjustments and testing
Solution Approach 1:
The system is segmented into distinct layers: control software, execution environment (with virtual hardware), and physical hardware. This segmentation allows the control software to remain unchanged while the execution environment handles hardware-specific adaptations through virtualization, resolving the contradiction between maintaining software reliability and enabling hardware adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The execution environment with virtual hardware acts as an intermediary layer between the control software and physical hardware. This mediator translates control software requests into hardware-specific operations, allowing hardware replacement without modifying the control software, thus maintaining both reliability and adaptability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If manual software adjustments are made for hardware replacement or network changes, then software can adapt to new configurations, but development time and costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The execution environment is pre-configured with virtual hardware that emulates the original control unit's interface and behavior. This preliminary setup allows control software to run unchanged on new hardware, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual adjustments and testing during hardware replacement.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual hardware in the execution environment creates a virtual copy of the original control unit's interface and behavior. This copying approach allows the control software to interact with identical virtual interfaces regardless of the underlying physical hardware, dramatically reducing adaptation time for hardware changes.
3Ease of manufacture
If control software is customized for specific industrial plants and field devices, then application-specific functionality is optimized, but porting to different hardware platforms becomes increasingly difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The execution environment provides universal support for multiple hardware platforms through virtualization. The same control software can run on different physical hardware by leveraging the execution environment's ability to emulate various control unit interfaces, reducing software porting complexity while maintaining application-specific functionality.
Data Source
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AI summary
Platform (1) for controlling at least one industrial field device (101) in an industrial plant (100) with control software (2), comprising an execution environment (3) in which the control software is executable, and an external interface (4) for communication between the control software (2) and the field device (101), wherein the execution environment (3) includes virtual hardware (31) which behaves like the field device (101) from the perspective of the control software (2), wherein a mediation unit (5) is connected between the virtual hardware (31) and the external interface (4), which is configured to translate data exchanged between the control software (2) and the virtual hardware (31) bidirectionally for communication with the field device (101) via the external interface (4). Associated computer program product.