A maintenance support system include includes: a first storage unit which stores first specification information indicating a specification of a process control system which performs control of an industrial process implemented in a plant; an actual condition information extraction unit configured to extract actual condition information indicating an actual condition for the process control system; and a first comparison unit configured to output first information indicating a result of comparing the first specification information stored in the first storage unit with the actual condition information extracted by the extraction unit.

Provided are complex control instruction chains to be performed in an (automation) network, in which nodes and/or device nodes and/or blockchain-external devices are networked to one another, in a simple manner even if different operators of the individual nodes and devices do not trust one another.

A configuration data structure for control systems in an automation system and to a method, a cloud computing unit, a control system, and a computer program for generating the configuration data structure. The configuration data structure comprises a cloud component, which provides at least one cloud function that can be carried out on the cloud computing unit, and a system component, which provides at least one system function that can be carried out on the control systems.

An automation technology field device includes operating electronics and a plurality of parameters. The operating electronics are designed to operate the field device based on the parameters and obtain and process data based on the parameters. A firmware is a software container allocated to the operating electronics. The software container is designed to execute the installed code to establish, using the code, a communication connection to a distributed ledger via at least one of the outputs is a higher-level communication network, to integrate the field device in the distributed ledger-and to process and/or combine at least one part of the obtained and processed data into result data and to transmit the result data to the distributed ledger.

An automation control system is provided that includes a distributed automation component that receives and processes delta scripts describing state changes to one or more objects of a persistent object model.

An industrial topology discovery system autonomously discovers and documents industrial automation system topologies using orchestrated discovery agents of various types. The topology discovery system can reside on a cloud platform or another high level network and deploy discovery agents on plant networks and devices within an industrial facility. These discovery agents can implement different strategies for discovering system information, and can include agents configured to monitor and report on communication traffic across respective types of networks, agents configured to probe respective device types for identity and configuration information, and other types of agents. Discovery services executed by the topology discovery system can collect device and network information obtained by the agents and use this information to document the topology of the automation system as well as to orchestrate the discovery behavior of the agents to extract further information about the system based on defined discovery rules.

A method for configuring an electronic control board for a target appliance includes obtaining, by one or more processors, data identifying the target appliance. The method includes determining, by the one or more processors, hardware configuration data for the electronic control board based, at least in part, on the data identifying the target appliance. The method includes generating, by the one or more processors, a control action associated with writing the hardware configuration data to a memory device on the electronic board.

Provided are complex control instruction chains to be performed in an (automation) network, in which nodes and/or device nodes and/or blockchain-external devices are networked to one another, in a simple manner even if different operators of the individual nodes and devices do not trust one another.

A configuration management interface system is provided for standardizing communication between an external application and one or more hardware or emulated industrial controllers. The interface system reads one or more industrial control programs and presents available data tags defined by the control programs to a user via an interface screen. The user can select a subset of the available data tags that are to be exposed to the external application for data communication. Based on the selected data tags, controller configuration information read from the control programs, and additional configuration information provided by the user, the interface system generates a control unit file that acts as a communication bridge between the external application and the selected data tags residing on the industrial controllers. The control unit file can be used to interface the application (e.g., an industrial simulation or another type of application) with either hardware controllers or emulated controllers.

An automation control system is provided that includes a distributed automation component that receives and processes delta scripts describing state changes to one or more objects of a persistent object model.