An industrial control system may receive processing information from at least two control systems associated with at least two components within an industrial automation system. The processing information may include a processing load value for each of the at least two control systems. The industrial control system may then distribute processing loads associated with the at least two control systems when a total processing load between the at least two control systems is unbalanced.

A method in an industrial process control and remote engineering system comprises receiving, by a remote control system, a control configuration, interfacing, by the remote control system, via a network, with at least one process equipment, and remotely controlling, by the remote control system, the at least one process equipment according to the control configuration. In some embodiments of the method, the remote control system is a twin of a local control system.

The invention refers to an edge computing device 120 for processing data 112 acquired with respect to a production process of an industrial plant comprising a plant control system 110, wherein the control system comprises a server 111. The device comprises a first unit 125 configured to be communicatively coupled to the server for receiving the data from the system. A second unit 121 is configured to provide a container runtime environment 122 configured to run a container on the second unit. A process container 123 is configured to run on the environment, wherein the process container comprises a program configured to process data acquired with respect to a production process of the industrial plant when running inside the process container. The first unit is communicatively coupled to the second unit for providing the received data to the environment, wherein the program is configured to process the provided data.

In the conventional distributed control system, since each control device updates the data area at a timing when a control packet is received, in a case where there is a difference in communication delay between the control devices or in a case where the communication delay includes jitter, it is difficult to match the contents of data in all the control devices in a case of focusing on a certain moment during system operation. Therefore, depending on the start timing of a control application, the control application operates on the basis of different data between the control devices, thus limiting control performance improvement. Accordingly, time slots on the network are allocated according to the result of a calculation unit, and a cyclic memory synchronization update unit synchronizes the timing of reflecting data in the input/output and the cyclic memory and the timing of using data of a cyclic memory.

An embedded system may distribute, e.g. at the point of coupling to a main power grid, information corresponding to one or more operational parameters (e.g. phase angle, frequency, amplitude, etc.) of a power delivery device to other power delivery devices, using a deterministic communication link. Updates of some or all of the information may be transmitted at future or past points in time, for example at defined time intervals. Time synchronization methods, e.g. a locked instantaneous interpolation mechanism may be used to create a coordinated time, shared among all power delivery devices. Various operating parameter mismatches, e.g. a phase mismatch between power delivery devices delivering power to the power grid, may thereby be reduced to less than a specified, negligible value. This creates tight time synchronization between the power delivery devices and allows them to interoperate in a manner that stabilizes rather than destabilizes the power grid.

A system and method receive raw data signals from a variety of edge devices. Observations are processed via a rule engine which may be preconfigured via a rule generator to implement a series of actions on remote or locally controlled machines. Rules are generated via a configurable user interface and may also be dynamically generated based on data received from the edge devices.

Systems and methods for automatic feedback control are provided. According to one embodiment of the disclosure, a method for automatic feedback control may commence with receiving high-level control references by a low-level controller communicatively coupled to a high-level controller via the network connection. The method may further include generating, by the low-level controller, low-level control references for a hardware asset based at least in part on the high-level control references. The method may continue with transferring control of the hardware asset to the low-level controller in response to a loss of the network connection. The method may further include adjusting the low-level control references by a low-level control mechanism associated with the low-level controller in response to the loss of the network connection.

A method includes transmitting, over a virtual private network (VPN) to a remotely-located control platform, a request for first information associated with a BOOTP protocol synchronization process. The method also includes receiving, from the control platform, a first response comprising the requested first information. The method further includes receiving, over a local network from an embedded device in a distributed control system, a request for second information associated with the BOOTP protocol. In addition, the method includes transmitting, to the embedded device, a second response comprising the requested second information.

A safety-directed control system comprises at least one safety sensor unit and at least one safety actuator unit, which are connected to one another via a fieldbus, and a programming device. Sensor connections for connecting safety sensors to the fieldbus are provided by the at least one safety sensor unit, the sensor connections being associated with safety lines. The programming device displays the available safety lines to a user via an output interface and receives a user input via an input interface, with the user input associating a selected safety response, which is executable by the safety actuator unit, with at least one selected safety line. The programming device further stores the association between the selected safety line and the selected safety response in the safety actuator unit as a safety configuration.

Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a field device including a network bridge, the network bridge to convert first data received at a first Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio of the network bridge, over a BLE network, from a second BLE radio of a remote device, and formatted according to a BLE communication protocol, into second data formatted according to an industrial communication protocol.