A functional safety system performs safety analysis on three-dimensional point cloud data measured by a time-of-flight (TOF) sensor that monitors a hazardous industrial area that includes an automation system. To reduce the amount of point cloud data to be analyzed for hazardous conditions, the safety system executes a real-time emulation of the automation system using a digital twin and live controller data read from an industrial controller that monitors and controls the automation system. The safety system generates simulated, or shadow, point cloud data based on the emulation and subtracts this simulate point cloud data from the measured point cloud data received from the TOF sensor. This removes portions of the point cloud data corresponding to known or expected elements within the monitored area. Any remaining entities detected in the reduced point cloud data can be further analyzed for safety concerns.

A system for visual state identification including: a visual display system including a plurality of light displays, each of the light displays provided to different physical locations on an automation system; an execution device operatively connected to the visual display system, including: an input device configured to receive data from the automation system; and computer readable instructions which, if executed by a processor, cause the processor to: receive input data; determine a state of the automation system based on the input data, wherein the state may include an area of interest related to one of the different physical locations; communicate with the visual display system to selectively light a portion of one or more of the plurality of light displays to display the state of the automation system and the physical location of the area of interest.

A method and device for configuring an intelligent electronic device, IED, hosting a logical node instance are provided. Incoming signals of the IED are bound to inputs of a function, the function being performed by the logical node instance in operation of an industrial automation control system, IACS. To bind the incoming signals to the inputs of the function, a computing device determines, based on an input data template of the logical node instance, which data is required by the logical node instance to perform the function. The computing device determines, using process related information of the IACS, source IEDs of the IACS that provide the data required by the logical node instance to perform the function.

A machine automation system for controlling and operating an automated machine. The system includes a controller and sensor bus including a central processing core and a multi-medium transmission intranet for implementing a dynamic burst to broadcast transmission scheme where messages are burst from nodes to the central processing core and broadcast from the central processing core to all of the nodes.

A computer-implemented method for operating a robotic manufacturing network, comprising: (a) providing a communications network; (b) providing a plurality of computer processor nodes for processing data wherein said computer processor nodes are participants on said communication network; (c) providing a plurality of manufacturing facilities; (d) providing a plurality of transport agents connecting said manufacturing facilities; (e) providing a plurality of actors selected from the group consisting of said manufacturing facilities and said transport agents wherein said actors are participants in said robotic manufacturing network and communicate on said communications network; (f) providing a robotic capability model as manufacturing supply chain planning service whereby autonomous manufacturing supply chain functionality is created that transforms product specifications into optimized manufacturing production plans thereby permitting products to be made by a population of networked manufacturing agents.

A method performs actions based on business need matching. A set of business need documents are filtered for relevance with respect to a query business need document to remove irrelevant documents based on business need relevance criteria. Hidden business intentions in remaining business need documents are extracted from the set after the filtering. For the query document with respect to the remaining business need documents, the following are computed: a business intention-based matching score, a business entity-based matching score, and an action modeling based matching score. Using an ensemble method, the scores are integrated into a final score, where higher scoring ones of the remaining business need documents more match a business need of the query business need document. Using an automated manufacturing system, a hardware item is co-manufactured responsive to a joint manufacturing venture derived from the final score.

Element actions of actuators incorporated in an automated manufacturing machine are stored in a manner associated with program elements to perform the element actions. An action chart is used to describe an operation of the automated manufacturing machine. The action chart includes subperiods into which an operation period from a start to an end of the operation of the automated manufacturing machine is divided. The action chart includes the element actions included in the operation of the automated manufacturing machine. The element actions are assigned to the subperiods. The action chart describing the operation of the automated manufacturing machine is read. The element actions on the action chart are converted into the program elements. The program elements are combined together in an order of the subperiods on the action chart. This allows automatic generation of a control program for controlling the operation of the automated manufacturing machine.

A human machine interface for an industrial automation control system includes at least one touchless input device that is adapted to be in a first state in which said human machine interface provides a first input to said industrial automation control system or a second state in which said human machine interface provides a second input to said industrial automation control system. The at least one touchless input device includes first and second touchless input sensors each configured to detect hand gestures of an operator's hand to provide input to said human machine interface based upon said gestures. The first and second touchless input sensors can be identical with respect to each other or different. In one example, one or both of the sensors are both time-of-flight sensors and one of the sensors can be an electric field proximity sensor. A method of providing a human machine interface with at least one touchless input device is provided. In one embodiment, the touchless input device provides an emergency stop (Estop) switch device.

Implementations are described herein for commissioning a device such as a distributed control node (DCN) for operation with a process automation system (PAS) using a portable setup device (PSD) and an “out-of-band” communication channel. In various implementations, static information conveyed by a passive data store of the DCN may be used to establish an out-of-band communication channel between the DCN and PSD. The out-of-band communication channel may be distinct from a process automation network through which the DCN is to be communicatively coupled with other process automation nodes of the PAS. The DCN may be commissioned to the process automation system by exchanging operational technology (OT) data between the DCN and the PSD via the out-of-band communication channel to enable the DCN to cooperate with one or more of the other process automation nodes on the process automation network to implement an at least partially automated process.

The present invention allows a communication mode in which to communicate with a detection section to be easily and conveniently changed in a motor control device. A slave device (90) includes: a network communication section (120) configured to communicate with a PLC (100) via a communication network; an FB signal obtaining section configured to obtain an FB signal from a detection section; and a setting communication section (140) configured to receive communication mode information of an FB through another communication path different from the communication network. The FB signal obtaining section includes a reconfigurable device and is capable of changing a communication mode of the FB signal obtaining section by reconfiguring the reconfigurable device. The slave device (90) reconfigures the reconfigurable device in accordance with the communication mode information in a case where the setting communication section (140) receives the communication mode information.