In-service diagnostic testing of containers with a climate control system used in intermodal freight transport includes automatically testing the functioning of the climate control system at a possibly pre-scheduled time which may depend on the period of time since the latest pre-trip inspection. According to the invention in-service diagnostic testing is performed with cargo in the container during transportation from origin to destination at a suitable time before expected arrival to the destination so that the approval resulting from the in-service diagnostic testing is fresh and up-to-date. Results of the in-service diagnostic testing are transmitted wirelessly to a receiver at a central facility where managing and allocating a large number of containers to individual transport tasks is performed, and containers which have not passed the in-service diagnostic testing can be taken out of service for maintenance and repair.

Methods and Systems for detecting anomalies in a control area of a control system. Estimating for the control area, a first state from a historical state over a first time period using a model of dynamics, and defining a transition of the first state as a function of control inputs, the first state includes a generator state for each generator, the control inputs include a network state for each bus, a mechanical input to each generator or power consumptions at the buses. Updating estimated first state, by connecting measurements of rotor frequency of each generator and measurements of the network states on the buses with the generator state of each generator, to obtain a second state over a second time period later than the first time period, and detecting anomalies based on a statistic deviation of the second state from its corresponding prediction derived from the first state.

An integrated diagnostics system utilizes online and offline diagnostics techniques to evaluate control valves found in process plant environments. The integrated diagnostics system improves on existing diagnostic systems, which typically rely exclusively on online diagnostics or offline diagnostics.

Methods and Systems for detecting anomalies in a control area of a control system. Estimating for the control area, a first state from a historical state over a first time period using a model of dynamics, and defining a transition of the first state as a function of control inputs, the first state includes a generator state for each generator, the control inputs include a network state for each bus, a mechanical input to each generator or power consumptions at the buses. Updating estimated first state, by connecting measurements of rotor frequency of each generator and measurements of the network states on the buses with the generator state of each generator, to obtain a second state over a second time period later than the first time period, and detecting anomalies based on a statistic deviation of the second state from its corresponding prediction derived from the first state.

An engineering tool for testing a process control system includes one or more test manager instances. Each test manager instance includes circuitry that receives test cases and associated test requests. The circuitry also identifies a target for each test request, translates each test request into instructions to the identified target, checks each test request for validity, initiates execution of each test case, monitors subscribed data generated by the target, computes a difference between the subscribed data at a first point in time and a second point in time, and generates a notification when the computed difference is greater than a predetermined threshold.

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to systems and methods for protecting a physical asset against an attack. In one exemplary embodiment, an asset protection system is configured to use a monitoring system to obtain performance parameters of a physical asset when the physical asset is in operation. The asset protection system is further configured to retrieve from a database, one or more threat signatures and to use the one or more threat signatures to detect an attack upon the physical asset, the detection based at least in part on identifying a relationship between at least one of the threat signatures and at least a portion of the performance parameters of the physical asset. When an attack is detected, a signal can be transmitted to a control system of the physical asset and/or directly to the physical asset, to modify an operation of the physical asset in response to the attack.

A plant control monitoring system that can reduce communication traffic between a client and server to improve processing speed, and that includes: a server-side storage section provided in a server to store operation right processing information for a machine group on a client operation monitoring screen; client-side storage sections provided in clients to store duplicates of the operation right processing information of the server-side storage section; and operation right processing sections provided in the clients to correspond to each of the operation monitoring screens and that perform operation right processing based on the operation right processing information of the client-side storage sections. Operation right processing information for each client is stored in a global variable storage section of the client-side storage section, and operation right processing information for each operation screen is stored in a local variable storage section of the client-side storage section.

In exemplary embodiments, methods for operating driving controls for communicating motors are disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, a method generally includes controlling a transmit circuit of the driving control to generate an expected transmit signal for sending to the communicating motor, and detecting, using a transmit sense circuit in the driving control, the actual resulting signal generated by the transmit circuit signal before the actual resulting signal leaves the driving control and is transmitted to the communicating motor. The method also includes analyzing the detected signal to verify whether the transmit circuit in the driving control is working properly, by comparing the expected transmit signal to the detected actual resulting signal. Exemplary methods are also disclosed of analyzing receive circuits of driving controls to verify whether the receive circuits are working properly.

Methods and an expert system for processing a plurality of inputs collected from sensors in an industrial environment are disclosed. A modular neural network, where the expert system uses one type of neural network for recognizing a pattern relating to at least one of: the sensors, components of the industrial environment and a different neural network for self-organizing a data collection activity in the industrial environment is disclosed. A data communication network configured to communicate at least a portion of the plurality of inputs collected from the sensors to storage device is also disclosed.

A method (1000) of diagnosis of operation of a machine tool (10, 100) that includes one or more axes (X, Y, Z) moved by one or more actuators (101, 102, 104) and at least one sensor (30) coupled to the machine tool (10, 100), the method (1000) comprising operations of: generating (1200) a programming sequence of movement of the axes (X, Y, Z) of the machine tool (10, 100); controlling (1210) the movement of the axes (X, Y, Z) of the machine tool (10, 100) according to the programming sequence; receiving (1220) a read-out signal (S) of the at least one sensor (30) coupled to the machine tool (10, 100); and processing (1230) the read-out signal (S) of the at least one sensor (30) coupled to the machine tool (10, 100). The programming sequence comprises instructions that are such as to apply (T) at least one single impulsive variation of a kinematic quantity that regards one or more actuators (101, 102, 104). The operation (1230) of processing the read-out signal (S) comprises processing a response of the machine tool (10, 100) to at least one single impulsive variation. The operation (1230) of processing the read-out signal (S) comprises artificial-neural-network processing (206) via one or more artificial neural networks (206, 2060) configured for analysing operating profiles in particular, one or more signals indicative of the status of the machine tool (W) in the read-out signal (S).