A user apparatus retrieves a list of current features in an industrial automation device in an industrial site, and a list of available features for the industrial automation device, and displays the lists to a user of the user apparatus. If a user input indicating that the industrial automation device is to be updated with one or more features selected amongst the available features, the one or more features are downloaded from a remote data storage to the user apparatus and therefrom to the industrial automation device to update the industrial automation device.

An area of robotic control, and in particular to managing a system configuration of a robot controller. According to a first aspect, the disclosure relates to a method for managing a system configuration of a robot controller configured to control operation of a robot. The method includes capturing S1 a snapshot of the robot controller, the snapshot including a current system configuration of the robot controller and storing S2 the captured snapshot in the backup archive. The method further includes generating S3, on the display representing one or more snapshots stored in the backup archive presented in chronological order and upon receiving S4, from the input device, user input selecting one of the displayed elements, retrieving S5, from the backup archive information corresponding to the snapshot represented by the selected element, and providing S6 the retrieved system configuration. The method also relates to a corresponding control system.

A working system includes at least one movable apparatus movable and at least one stationary apparatus. The movable apparatus includes a working unit performing a predetermined work. The stationary apparatus includes a control unit performing drive control of the working unit. A control method of the system includes: instructing, when the movable apparatus has reached a working position, the control unit of the stationary apparatus to establish communication with the working unit of the movable apparatus; updating status information indicating a communication establishment status, after the communication instruction; instructing the control unit to transmit an operation signal to the working unit in the working position; instructing the control unit to disconnect the communication, after the signal transmission instruction step; and updating the status information after the disconnection instruction.

A method for operating an automation component by a control program having a plurality of control program components, the method including the steps: detecting error events of the control program during an operation of the automation component, downloading a current control program component for error analysis based on error events from a central system, and updating an existing control program component for error analysis by way of the current control program component for error analysis.

An authentication module may be internally or externally installed on a lift control of a vehicle lift and allows new and updated features to be added to the vehicle lift without requiring a connection to a local or cellular network. The authentication module connects to one or more other electrical components of the lift control to allow for the exchange of data. A module containing software and configurations for enabling a feature may be removably attached to the authentication module, which uses the stored configurations to verify and enable the associated feature. The use of enabled features may be persistently tracked by the authentication module even in the absence of an external power source or network connection, and may be disabled by the authentication module if the feature use expires or is exhausted.

A method of managing oilfield activity with a control system is provided having a plurality of virtual sensors and integrating the virtual sensors into a virtual sensor network. The method includes determining interdependencies among the virtual sensors, obtaining operational information from the virtual sensors, and providing virtual sensor output to the control system based on the determined interdependencies and the operational information.

A system and method for configuring a cloud-enabled industrial control system is disclosed involving a cloud computing system receiving instrument data, configuring the instrument data to create an instrument index, alerting and automatically correcting, by a cloud service, configuration errors in the instrument index that occurred during the configuration of the instrument data; creating, by at least a rules engine cloud service using the instrument index, a hardware layout for at least a portion of the cloud-enabled industrial control system; and assigning, by the rules engine cloud service, input/output (I/O) points from the instrument index to the hardware layout to create an I/O configuration file for the cloud-enabled industrial control system.

A system and method for testing a control system is disclosed. The control system includes a field device located in one area and a controller located in a different area. A mobile application running on a mobile computing device is used by a technician to test the control system. Because both the mobile computing device and the controller are coupled to a cloud computing system, the technician may interface with the controller while located at the field device. This remote access to the controller allows a single technician to test the control system by interfacing with the controller and the field device simultaneously. In addition, the mobile application may retrieve data from the cloud computing system to facilitate testing and may transmit test results to the cloud for storage. Others having access to the stored results may view the progress and results of the testing.

A controller according to an embodiment includes a main processing unit and a monitoring unit. The main processing unit executes a control program. The monitoring unit monitors the main processing unit by a first monitoring method for transmitting, to the main processing unit, a transmission content corresponding to a question and for evaluating an answer to the question from the main processing unit. The main processing unit causes, when receiving an updating request of the control program, the monitoring unit to perform switching from the first monitoring method into a second monitoring method for monitoring a watchdog signal of the main processing unit.

An authentication module may be internally or externally installed on a lift control of a vehicle lift and allows new and updated features to be added to the vehicle lift without requiring a connection to a local or cellular network. The authentication module connects to one or more other electrical components of the lift control to allow for the exchange of data. A module containing software and configurations for enabling a feature may be removably attached to the authentication module, which uses the stored configurations to verify and enable the associated feature. The use of enabled features may be persistently tracked by the authentication module even in the absence of an external power source or network connection, and may be disabled by the authentication module if the feature use expires or is exhausted.