Data acquired by numerous wireless sensors in a large industrial setting is communicated to the operations center via nodes in defined geographic cells where the signals from the sensors may be depowered to naturally attenuate below the perception of most other receiving nodes in the industrial system. It would be optimal that signals would attenuate sufficiently such that most signals in a cell are not discernible to receiving nodes in adjacent cells, but some sensors near the boundary of a cell will probably have to be set at sufficient power that the nearest adjacent receiving cell would necessarily perceive the signal. Data rejection protocols would exclude data from outside a cell and the advantage of the invention is that it minimizes the volume of errant signals leading to more reliable and robust data for operators.

A cloud gateway for coupling an industrial system to a cloud platform is provided. The cloud gateway collects data from one or more industrial controllers, meters, sensors, or other devices comprising an industrial automation system. The cloud gateway optionally performs additional transformations on the data to add context, summarize, filter, reformat, and/or encrypt the data. The cloud gateway then sends data to a cloud platform for use by one or more cloud-based applications or services. The cloud gateway can facilitate cloud-based data collection from both fixed-location and mobile industrial systems. The cloud gateway can also support store-and-forward logic, allowing industrial data to be temporarily stored in local storage in the event that communication between the cloud gateway and the cloud platform is disrupted.

A layered industrial analytics architecture enables the flow of information from intelligent assets into tools and engines that perform analytics and enable decision-making in substantially real-time. The analytics architecture comprises analytic nodes that are distributed across multiple layers of an industrial enterprise, and includes system features that optimize movement of data across this layered architecture. Each analytic node includes base architectural constructs that host various analytic, data acquisition, and storage elements. These base constructs can operate autonomously, or in conjunction with other instances of base constructs or other elements of the control system. The system design uses a multi-platform compatible implementation that allows the base elements to be deployed on various different computing platforms.

A layered industrial analytics architecture enables the flow of information from intelligent assets into tools and engines that perform analytics and enable decision-making in substantially real-time. The analytics architecture comprises analytic nodes that are distributed across multiple layers of an industrial enterprise, and includes system features that optimize movement of data across this layered architecture. Each analytic node includes base architectural constructs that host various analytic, data acquisition, and storage elements. These base constructs can operate autonomously, or in conjunction with other instances of base constructs or other elements of the control system. The system design uses a multi-platform compatible implementation that allows the base elements to be deployed on various different computing platforms.

An information-linkage supporting apparatus includes: a schema-information acquiring unit acquiring schema information concerning the configuration of numerical control data stored by a numerical-control-data storing apparatus as a database, from the numerical-control-data storing apparatus; a memory-map-information acquiring unit acquiring memory map information concerning memory allocation in the data memory of the numerical control data stored by a numerical control apparatus in an inside thereof, from the numerical control apparatus; a mapping-table generating unit generating, on the basis of association instruction information inputted from the outside for instructing association between constituent elements of the schema information and constituent elements of the memory map information, a mapping table, which is information for information linkage obtained by associating and mapping the constituent elements of the schema information and the constituent elements of the memory map information; and a mapping-table transmitting unit transmitting the mapping table to the numerical control apparatus.

A system and method for collecting real time manufacturing data from a factory having multiple machines therein using internet-of-things (IoT) connectivity, comprising: at least one gateway comprising at least one server, the at least one gateway receiving data from the multiple machines; at least one machine communications module (MCM) that applies to the received data at least factory, enterprise, and analytics applications, and which outputs command and control information from the applications to the at least one gateway to directly control operations of the multiple machines; wherein the gateway provides security isolation on the machine side of the gateway, and encryption, authentication, and authorization security on the MCM side of the gateway; and wherein the applications process and normalize data from at least a plurality of types and generations of the multiple machines.

Data acquired by numerous wireless sensors in a large industrial setting is communicated to the operations center via nodes in defined geographic cells where the signals from the sensors may be depowered to naturally attenuate below the perception of most other receiving nodes in the industrial system. It would be optimal that signals would attenuate sufficiently such that most signals in a cell are not discernible to receiving nodes in adjacent cells, but some sensors near the boundary of a cell will probably have to be set at sufficient power that the nearest adjacent receiving cell would necessarily perceive the signal. Data rejection protocols would exclude data from outside a cell and the advantage of the invention is that it minimizes the volume of errant signals leading to more reliable and robust data for operators.

Data acquired by numerous wireless sensors in a large industrial setting is communicated to the operations center via nodes in defined geographic cells where the signals from the sensors may be depowered to naturally attenuate below the perception of most other receiving nodes in the industrial system. It would be optimal that signals would attenuate sufficiently such that most signals in a cell are not discernible to receiving nodes in adjacent cells, but some sensors near the boundary of a cell will probably have to be set at sufficient power that the nearest adjacent receiving cell would necessarily perceive the signal. Data rejection protocols would exclude data from outside a cell and the advantage of the invention is that it minimizes the volume of errant signals leading to more reliable and robust data for operators.

To provide a trusted, secure, and immutable record of transactions within a process plant, techniques are described for utilizing a distributed ledger in process control systems. The distributed ledger may be maintained by nodes which receive transactions broadcasted from field devices, controllers, operator workstations, or other devices operating within the process plant. The transactions may include process plant data, such as process parameter data, product parameter data, configuration data, user interaction data, maintenance data, commissioning data, plant network data, and product tracking data. The distributed ledgers may also be utilized to execute smart contracts to allow machines such as field devices to transact by themselves without human intervention. In this manner, recorded process parameter values and product parameter values may be retrieved to verify the quality of products. Moreover, regulatory data may be recorded in response to triggering events so that regulatory agencies can review the data.

Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for remotely executing a robotic process automation (RPA) bot as a function. An embodiment operates by generating an RPA bot function in a first network environment and transmitting the RPA bot function to an application located in a second network environment. The embodiment further operates by receiving results data from the application based on an execution of the RPA bot function in the second network environment. Subsequently, the embodiment operates by generating results user interface (UI) data based on the results data and transmitting the results UI data to a user input/output (I/O) device located in the first network environment.