METHOD FOR PROVIDING A GENERIC DIAGNOSIS MODEL

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for providing a generic diagnosis model at a node of an automation network, wherein the automation network has multiple subordinate field bus segments, each having multiple field bus subscribers, connected to the node and the method comprises the following steps: provision of specific diagnosis information by the field bus subscribers of the respective field bus segment; combination of the specific diagnosis information provided by the field bus subscribers at the node; transfer of all combined diagnosis information to the generic diagnosis model, wherein the specific diagnosis information is additionally enriched with meta information, so that the generic diagnosis model can be used to access specific diagnosis information of the respective field bus subscriber.

Claims

1-12. (canceled)

13. A computer-implemented method to provide a generic diagnosis model, comprising: providing an automation network including a node and multiple subordinate field bus segments connected to the node, each subordinate field bus segment including multiple field bus subscribers; providing to the node specific diagnosis information by the field bus subscribers of the respective field bus segment; combining the specific diagnosis information provided by the field bus subscribers at the node; transferring the combined diagnosis information to a generic diagnosis model; and enriching the specific diagnosis information with meta information so that the generic diagnosis model can be used to access the specific diagnosis information of the respective field bus subscriber.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the generic diagnosis model is accessed by a unit that is superordinate to the node.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein access from the superordinate unit to the node occurs via an OPC-UA protocol.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the multiple subordinate fieldbus segments includes at least a Profibus DP, a Profibus PA, or a HART segment.

17. The method according to claim 13, wherein the meta information of the generic diagnosis model is used to access specific diagnosis information.

18. The method according to claim 13, wherein the specific diagnosis information is combined at the node via an OPC-UA protocol.

19. An automation technology system, comprising: an automation network; several fieldbus segments in the automation network, each fieldbus segment including several fieldbus subscribers, wherein the fieldbus subscribers of each fieldbus segment include specific diagnosis information; and a node in the automation network, wherein the fieldbus segments are connected with the node and the node is configured to receive the specific diagnosis information from the plurality of subscribers, transfer the received specific diagnosis information to a generic diagnosis model, combine the received specific diagnosis information at the node, enrich the received specific diagnosis information with meta information, communicate with a superordinate unit via an OPC-UA protocol, and communicate with the fieldbus segments with at least a Profibus DP protocol, a Profibus PA protocol, or a HART protocol.

20. The automation technology system according to claim 19, further comprising: at least one superordinate unit configured to access the generic diagnosis model at the node via an OPC-UA protocol.

21. The automation technology system according to claim 19, wherein the node includes a gateway.

22. The automation technology system according to claim 19, wherein the fieldbus segments include at least one of the following: a Profibus DP, a Profibus PA, a HART, an Ethernet IP, a Profinet and a Foundation fieldbus segment.

23. The automation technology system according to claim 19, wherein the specific diagnosis information includes at least one Profibus DP, one Profibus PA or one HART specific diagnosis information.

24. The automation technology system according to claim 19, wherein the specific diagnosis information includes information pursuant to the NAMUR recommendation N 107.

Description

[0033] The invention is explained in more detail based upon the following drawing. Illustrated are:

[0034] FIG. 1: a schematic illustration of an automation network to explain the method according to the invention.

[0035] FIG. 1 shows a schematic representation of an automation network 1 to explain the method according to the invention. The automation network 1 comprises three fieldbus segments 4a, 4b, 4c that are connected to several superordinate units 11 via a joint node 3.

[0036] A number of systems come into consideration as superordinate units, especially those that allow an OPC-UA connection to the node. For example, the superordinate unit may be a stored program control (abbreviated: SPC) and/or a process control system (abbrev.: PCS), a manufacturing execution system (abbrev.: MES), a production planning and control system (abbrev.: PPS), a customer relationship management system (abbrev.: CRM), a web server, a human-machine interface (abbrev.: HMI) and/or a supervisory control and data acquisition system (abbrev.: SCADA).

[0037] The superordinate unit and/or units is and/or are connected to the node via a fieldbus with OPC-UA protocol 10, so that the unit and/or units may access the central node. The node 3 in turn is connected with the different fieldbus segments via a fieldbus.

[0038] The first fieldbus segment 4a is a segment based on Profibus DP. Accordingly, the field units associated to the first fieldbus segment show specific Profibus DP diagnosis information.

[0039] The second fieldbus segment 4b is a segment based on Profibus PA. Accordingly, the field units associated to the second fieldbus segment show specific Profibus PA diagnosis information.

[0040] The third fieldbus segment 4b is a segment based on HART. Accordingly, the field units associated to the third fieldbus segment show specific HART diagnosis information. In case of the HART segment, the specific diagnosis information is processed in a switch and/or gateway, e.g. a remote I/O, before they are fed into the node. The switch and/or the gateway additionally comprise their own specific diagnosis information, e.g. physical network characteristics that are also fed into the node. The fieldbus-specific pieces of diagnosis information from the respective fieldbus subscribers are directly fed to the node from the Profibus DP and Profibus PA segments. As can be seen from FIG. 1, the fieldbus subscribers may have information B pursuant to the NAMUR recommendation NE 107 in addition to the bus-specific diagnosis information A, C, D or E. In such case, the specific diagnosis information hence comprises the bus-specific diagnosis information A, C, D or E and the diagnosis information B as per the NAMUR recommendation NE 107 (in the version as from Jun. 12, 2006).

[0041] The various specific diagnosis information to the node is fed in via an OPC-UA protocol. The node, which may be a gateway, processes and/or transforms the specific diagnosis information into a generic and/or unified diagnosis model and/or information model and synchronizes it in time. In this model, additional meta-information is added, so that superordinate units may access specific diagnosis information of the respective fieldbus subscriber and query the structure and/or features of the model and/or the information in an automated manner. The provision of meta-information via a central node allows many use cases for Industry 4.0, such as increased automation levels of the monitoring function of a system. Similarly, meta-information allows for automatic visualization of the specific diagnosis information.

LIST OF REFERENCE SYMBOLS

[0042] 1 Automation network [0043] 2 Generic diagnosis model [0044] 3 Node [0045] 4a First fieldbus segment, especially Profibus DP segment [0046] 4b Second fieldbus segment, especially Profibus PA segment [0047] 4c Third fieldbus segment, especially HART segment [0048] 5 Field device [0049] 6 Switch/Gateway of the HART segment [0050] 7 Profibus DP fieldbus [0051] 8 Profibus PA fieldbus [0052] 9 HART fieldbus [0053] 10 Fieldbus with OPC-UA protocol [0054] 11 Superordinate unit [0055] A, B, C, D, E Specific diagnosis information