The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for providing sets of compatible firmware versions (e.g., cross-compatibility solution) for flashing (e.g., programming or re-programming) different devices of a network of devices (e.g., an industrial automation system) when using a flashing application. Providing the compatible firmware versions of such network of devices may facilitate flashing the devices with compatible firmware, based on a topology of the network of devices, to prevent functional errors in the network of devices. The present systems and methods may also be applicable to determining and providing cross-compatibility solution between different firmware, as well as software, used by different devices of a network of devices. That said, although embodiments described herein are with respect to providing sets of compatible firmware versions for firmware associated with devices of a network, it should be appreciated that similar systems and methods may provide sets of compatible software versions associated with various devices of a network.

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 system and method for managing and analyzing plant design data includes a configuration item manager allows automatic configuration item management, intend of manual configuration item management, by automatically acquiring the design data which is synchronized with the actual plant, while preventing the design data analyzer from analyzing the design data in work status which has been changed but has not yet been applied to the plant, not synchronized with the actual plant.

Flexible graphic element objects in a process plant are configurable both in a run-time operating environment in which a process is being controlled and in a configuration environment. An instantiated flexible graphic element object may be a display view or may be another graphic element included on a display view. A graphic element object may be linked to and/or derived from another graphic element object, and changes to a particular graphic element object may be propagated to its derivations, e.g., according to a distribution policy. Changes to definitions corresponding to a particular graphic element object (e.g., to the definition of a graphic element attribute such as a shape, animation, event handler or property) may be overridden or modified in another object derived from the particular graphic element object. The modified derived object may be renamed and saved separately from the particular graphic element object.

Techniques for presenting historized process parameter values in a process plant include presenting, via a user interface of an operator application, indications of process control elements in a first display region within a layout of a display view. Each of the process control elements is associated with one or more process parameters. The operator application also presents a trend display view in a second display region within the layout of the display view. The trend display view includes sets of historized process parameter values for process parameters presented in the first display region. For example, the trend display view in the second display region is linked to the display view in the first display region. In this manner, the trend display view presents charts or other graphical depictions of historized process parameter values for process parameters included in the first display region.

A management apparatus acquires backup data from a plurality of devices, and stores the acquired backup data in a database in association with position information of the plurality of devices. The management apparatus restores the backup data included in the database, to the device that is present at a position corresponding to the position information associated with the backup data.

A device intelligence architecture configures and controls on-site devices and performs environment monitoring to facilitate effective device functionality. The architecture facilitates efficient use of devices (e.g., robotics) in an unstructured and dynamic environment, which will allow deployments in many more environments than is currently possible. The architecture stores and shares information between segregated devices to avoid the silo effect of vendor specific stacks. The architecture also models capabilities of devices and maps actions to intelligence packages to deploy a specific intelligence package to the device. The architecture also implements distributed processing. For instance, computationally intensive tasks may be offloaded to the back end processing, with action updates resulting from the processing pushed to the devices.

A numerical control machine tool processing program sharing method includes steps, namely program upload, program verification and program download, whereby a processing program in a sharer's possession is uploaded to a database and then verified by administrators with a administration program. After a client has downloaded the processing program, the processing program is directly loaded onto a numerical control machine tool to process workpieces.

Flexible graphic element objects in a process plant are configurable both in a run-time operating environment in which a process is being controlled and in a configuration environment. An instantiated flexible graphic element object may be a display view or may be another graphic element included on a display view. A graphic element object may be linked to and/or derived from another graphic element object, and changes to a particular graphic element object may be propagated to its derivations, e.g., according to a distribution policy. Changes to definitions corresponding to a particular graphic element object (e.g., to the definition of a graphic element attribute such as a shape, animation, event handler or property) may be overridden or modified in another object derived from the particular graphic element object. The modified derived object may be renamed and saved separately from the particular graphic element object.

Flexible graphic element objects in a process plant are configurable both in a run-time operating environment in which a process is being controlled and in a configuration environment. An instantiated flexible graphic element object may be a display view or may be another graphic element included on a display view. A graphic element object may be linked to and/or derived from another graphic element object, and changes to a particular graphic element object may be propagated to its derivations, e.g., according to a distribution policy. Changes to definitions corresponding to a particular graphic element object (e.g., to the definition of a graphic element attribute such as a shape, animation, event handler or property) may be overridden or modified in another object derived from the particular graphic element object. The modified derived object may be renamed and saved separately from the particular graphic element object.