Patent ID: 9323823
Filing Date: 2016-04-26
CPC Classification: G05B,G06F

Claim Text:
1. A method for operating an automation system having a plurality of subsystems which are each provided with a control program, a processor and memory, relevant data from the one subsystem being transmitted from one subsystem of the plurality of subsystems to another subsystem of the plurality of subsystems during an updating phase of the automation system to transfer process control from a solo mode of the one subsystem of the plurality of subsystems to a redundant control mode with the other subsystem of the plurality of subsystems, the method comprising: creating, by the one subsystem, a local copy of its relevant data at a beginning of the updating phase; transmitting, by the one subsystem during the updating phase, the local copy of the relevant data to the other subsystem in fragmented form, and buffering process input values and releases from the one subsystem, the releases indicating which processing sections of the control program have already been processed by the one subsystem during execution by the processor; processing, after the copy has been transmitted, processing sections of the control program of the other subsystem which correspond to the processing sections of the control program of the one subsystem with a time lag using the other subsystem taking into account the buffered process input values such that process control is transferred from the solo mode of the one subsystem of the plurality of subsystems to the redundant control mode with the other subsystem of the plurality of subsystems, the released processing sections of the control program being processed in the processor at a greater rate than the processing of the processing sections of the control program to reduce a processing time lag to a predefined value.