Patent ID: 7941229
Filing Date: 2011-05-10
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
1. A data industrial control I/O system comprising: an I/O module having one or more data channels, each of the data channels receiving a time varying signal corresponding to a portion of an industrial process at a first sampling rate, a connector providing a connection to a backplane adapted to communicate with an industrial controller; a clock synchronizable with a clock of the industrial controller to provide identical absolute time values at the I/O module and the industrial controller; a processor executing a stored program to assemble a set of sequentially acquired samples for each signal into a data block, each sample representing a different time value of the signal, and assigns an absolute time-stamp identifier to the data block using the clock, wherein the set includes at least two sequentially acquired samples from the signal and wherein each I/O module stores multiple sample sets from each of the data channels into multiple data blocks that are output by the I/O module to the industrial controller to provide a snap-shot of the industrial process during a time period in which the multiple sample sets were sampled and to transmit the data block to the industrial controller at a second sampling rate slower than the first sampling rate for control of the industrial process; wherein the absolute time-stamp identifier assigned to each of the multiple data blocks is coded to the acquired data, and an absolute time-stamp for each data sample of each data block of the multiple data blocks is provided to the industrial controller during I/O module readout.