Virtual Plant Design Environment for Integrated Automation Workflows
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial automation systems face challenges in efficient design and programming due to the need for separate development environments for different components, leading to a piecemeal design approach that requires significant testing and debugging to ensure proper integration, and often involves non-intuitive workflows with conventional cursor- and keyboard-driven interfaces.
Innovation Solution
An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) system that supports a virtual design environment allowing designers to interact with a virtual reality presentation of a plant facility, translating manual interactions into executable system project data including control programs and visualizations, using a common design environment and data model to configure and manage automation system devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If separate development environments are used for different components of industrial automation systems, then each component can be developed independently, but the overall system integration requires significant testing and debugging time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple separate development environments (control programming, visualization design, configuration tools) into a single integrated development environment. This unification allows all system components to be developed, simulated, and tested together in one cohesive platform, eliminating the time-consuming integration testing that occurs when separate tools are used.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated environment performs preliminary simulation and validation of the complete automation system before actual deployment. By allowing designers to test control logic, visualization elements, and system interactions in a virtual environment beforehand, potential integration issues are identified and resolved early, preventing extensive debugging later.
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional cursor- and keyboard-driven interfaces are used for designing automation systems, then traditional programming workflows are maintained, but the design process becomes non-intuitive and complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical cursor- and keyboard-driven interfaces with modern graphical user interfaces that use visual dragging, dropping, and point-and-click interactions. This substitution makes the design process more intuitive by allowing designers to manipulate automation elements visually rather than through text-based programming commands.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated development environment serves as an intermediary layer between the designer's intentions and the underlying control system implementation. It provides visual tools and abstraction layers that simplify complex programming tasks, translating high-level graphical designs into executable control code automatically.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple separate tools are used for control programming and visualization design, then specialized functionality is maintained, but the overall system requires integrated testing that increases complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The integrated development environment implements multi-functionality by incorporating control programming, visualization design, configuration, and simulation capabilities within a single unified platform. All these previously separate specialized tools now coexist in one environment that manages them through a common data model and project structure.
Solution Approach 2:
While unifying the environment, the system maintains segmentation of different functionality areas (control, visualization, configuration) as distinct but interconnected modules. Each module retains its specialized capabilities while being managed through a centralized project framework that handles integration automatically.
Data Source
AI summary
An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) supports a virtual design environment that allows an automation system designer to perform project development via interaction with a virtual reality presentation of the plant facility. The industrial design environment can generate system project data for an automation project—including but not limited to device selections, industrial control programming, device configurations, visualizations, engineering drawings, etc. —based on the developer's manual interactions with the virtual reality presentation. These interactions can include, for example, placing and moving machines or other industrial assets within the virtualized environment, defining trajectories of motion devices or robots using manual gestures, or other such interactive input. The IDE system interprets the developer's interactions as design specifications for the automation system being designed and translates these interactions into control code, visualizations, device configurations, and other system aspects that satisfy the design specifications.