Abstract:
A programming tool provides an interface between an industrial controller and a motor drive that allows the logic development tool used to program the industrial controller to be used to configure the motor drive and its supported components directly. This allows a programmer to configure the topology for the motor drive and provide configuration data that can be verified directly from within the controller programming software rather than requiring separate programming and diagnostic tools.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/835,495, filed Aug. 8, 2007, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes. 
     
    
     STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT 
       [0002]    -- 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0003]    The present invention relates to an industrial control system used for real-time control of industrial processes, and in particular, to integrated drive management and configuration using instantiated objects. One aspect of the invention allows a drive or other peripheral component of an industrial process to be configured using the logic development tool customarily used to configure or otherwise program an industrial controller of the industrial process. 
         [0004]    Industrial controllers are special purpose computers used for controlling industrial processes and manufacturing equipment on a real-time basis. Under the direction of a stored program, the industrial controller examines a set of inputs reflecting the status of the controlled process and changes a set of outputs controlling the industrial process. The inputs and outputs may be binary, which is on or off, or analog, providing a value within a continuous range. Typically analog signals are converted to binary words for processing. Industrial controllers differ from conventional computers in that their hardware configurations vary significantly from application to application reflecting their wide range of uses. This variability is accommodated by constructing the industrial controller on a modular basis having removable input and output (I/O) modules that may accommodate different numbers of input and output points depending on the process being controlled. The need to connect the I/O modules to different pieces of machinery that may be spatially separated has led to the development of a remote I/O rack holding a number of I/O modules at a remote location to communicate with a central processor of the industrial control via an adapter module, which in turn is connected with a high speed network linked to the central processor. The adapter exchanges information between the network and the I/O modules. 
         [0005]    Industrial controllers further differ from conventional computers in that they must process a large amount of input and output data on a predictable real-time basis. This requires not only that the response time of the industrial controller be extremely fast, but also that the processing delay between a changing input and the response of a reacting output be consistent so that the controller operates predictably over time. 
         [0006]    To satisfy these requirements of speed and consistency, many industrial controllers use a “scan” based architecture in which each input and output are sequentially read and written over repeated scans of regular duration. Newer industrial controllers may use a producer/consumer model which allows I/O modules to produce data when sampled rather than waiting for a controller scan. This produce/consume protocol may also be used in the communication between an adapter module and the I/O modules of a remote I/O rack. The immediate production of data makes the data available to be used in the system as quickly as possible and reduces overhead on the controller to actively scan all inputs, even when no new data is available. During operation of an industrial process, the industrial controller consumes data produced by the I/O modules, which acquires or samples data from various components of the industrial process, in a timed loop. Those various components include motor drives and other peripheral devices adapted to carry out various functions of the industrial process. 
         [0007]    Industrial controllers execute a stored program to control the industrial process. In this regard, industrial controllers are programmable devices and, as such, are also referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs). A number of programming tools have been used to program PLCs for industrial applications. One such programming tool is RSLogix 5000, commercially available from Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, Wis. These programming tools not only enable a programmer to configure the PLC, but may also present generic profiles of various components of the industrial process, such as a motor drive. The generic profiles provide the programmer with information regarding the supported component so that information can be considered during programming of the PLC; however, the programmer is unable to configure the component, e.g., motor drive, directly within the context of the PLC programming tool. In this regard, a separate programming tool, specific for configuring the component, such as DriveTools, commercially available from Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, Wis., is required to be launched, either directly by the programmer or by the PLC programming tool, to enable the operator to configure the component. The separate programming tools result in a disconnect that can make programming of the PLC and the controlled components, e.g. motor drives, difficult. 
         [0008]    More particularly, the PLC communicates with a drive through a communications module. For the drive to be fully operational, the drive as well as the communications module must be configured. In this regard, an elaborate communications framework has been established in which configuration data is not passed between the PLC and the drive unless the communications module allows the communication. Even if the initial communications hurdles are overcome and the communications module passes the configuration data to the motor drive, the PLC is unable to verify that the data was, in fact, properly received by the motor drive. The PLC can only verify that the communications module accepted the communication. 
         [0009]    As a result of the independence between the PLC and the communications module, the PLC cannot verify that the configuration data, even if received, has been properly mapped to parameters of the motor drive. This can be particularly problematic since the mapping mechanism used to map the configuration data to the motor drive is typically unique for the motor drive. If the mapping to the parameters of the motor drive is incorrect, the configuration data may not be stored correctly or the communications module may not permit the data transfer altogether. As a result, a separate error checking tool must be used to verify configuration of the drive and the communications module. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0010]    The present inventors have developed a programming tool for integrated controller and motor drive management and configuration that overcomes the drawbacks associated with conventional motor drive programming tools. The inventive programming tool provides an interface between the controller and a motor drive that allows the logic development tool used to program the industrial controller to be used to configure the motor drive and its supported components directly. As such, a programmer can program the motor drive in the context of the programming software used to configure the controller. More particularly, within the context of the programming software for the controller, a programmer can configure the topology for the motor drive and provide configuration data (typically parameters) that can be verified directly from within the controller programming software. Motor drive configuration data is typically provided via parameters but may also consist of other types of data. 
         [0011]    It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an industrial control system having motor drives that are configured using the logic development tool customarily used to configure industrial controllers of the industrial control system. 
         [0012]    It is also an object of the invention to provide instantiated motor drive objects that create a data structure holding configuration data for a particular motor drive, guide user entry of configuration data into the data structure using data names specific to the particular motor drive, and manage the transfer of the configuration data from a PLC to the particular motor drive when executed on the PLC. 
         [0013]    The foregoing and other aspects of the invention will appear from the following description. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which there is shown by way of illustration a preferred embodiment of the invention. Such embodiment does not necessarily represent the full scope of the invention, however, and reference must be made to the claims herein for interpreting the scope of the invention. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0014]      FIG. 1  is a simplified diagram of an industrial process and a programming workstation used to program or configure components of the industrial process; 
           [0015]      FIG. 2  is a block diagram showing a framework for configuring an industrial controller and a motor drive of the industrial process with a motor drive offline; 
           [0016]      FIG. 3  is a block diagram showing a framework for configuring an industrial controller and a motor drive of the industrial process while a motor drive is online; and 
           [0017]      FIG. 4  is a flow chart setting forth the steps of configuring a motor drive according to one aspect of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0018]      FIG. 1  depicts a general framework of an industrial control system and a computer used to configure the industrial control system. In this regard, the industrial control system  10  includes an industrial controller or PLC  12  that communicates with various components used to monitor or operate an industrial process. An exemplary industrial control system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,662,247, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein. Communication between the controller  12  and the controlled components is preferably across a high-speed, serial network  14 , which may be any one of a number of high-speed serial networks including ControlNet, EtherNet, or the like. Exemplary components include motor drives  16  and I/O modules  18 . 
         [0019]    The controller  12  includes a stored software program, shown as block  20 , that is stored in memory of the controller and includes executable code that when executed by the controller  12  causes the controller to control operation of the drives  16 , I/O modules  18 , and other controlled components of the industrial control system  10 , as is well-known in the art. 
         [0020]    A workstation  22  may be connected to the controller  12  to program the controller  12 , i.e., write or edit program  20 . In a preferred embodiment, workstation  22  includes a computer loaded with a software application  24  designed to allow a user to program the controller  12 . One exemplary programming language is RSLogix 5000, commercially available from Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, Wis. The controller programming application or tool  24 , which may consist of multiple applications bundled in a programming suite, presents various user interfaces to guide a programmer in the programming, i.e., establishing control logic, for the industrial controller  12 . Additionally, the workstation  22  includes applications that facilitate programming of motor drive  16  within the context of the controller programming tool, as will be described. 
         [0021]    More particularly, the workstation  22  accesses, either from local memory or an external memory location such as a server, an add-on configuration interface program  26  that provides integration between the software application  24  and a motor drive object database  28 . The motor drive object database  28  contains object models of various motor drives that can be instantiated, as desired. For instance, a particular motor drive may be used repeatedly throughout an industrial control process. To configure each instance of this particular motor drive, multiple instantiations of the object model of the motor drive may be generated and separately and individually configured to carry out respective functions within the industrial process. Because the configuration interface program  26  is integrated with the software application  24  and is linked to the motor drive object database  28 , a user can instantiate one or more object models  30  of a motor drive for configuration directly within the software application  24  to create particular instantiated objects  32 . 
         [0022]    The instantiated objects  32  contain data, when instantiated by the user, configure operation of the motor drive associated with the instantiated object  32 . Moreover, the instantiated objects  32  contain programs that guide the programmer during configuration of the associated motor drive by presenting a graphical template or form  34  identifying configurable parameters for the motor drive by name or other recognizable identifier. Thus, there is a direct mapping between the configuration data of the object and the motor drive. The configuration data for a particular motor drive may then be stored in the data structure of the associated instantiated object and subsequently written to the corresponding motor drive to configure the motor drive. That is, after a programmer has configured the instantiated object for a particular motor drive, the configuration data is stored in memory  35  of the controller  12  and then communicated to the actual motor drive  16  by the controller to complete the configuration process. The instantiated objects  32  also include programming to manage communication of the configuration data to their associated motor drives and interfacing with a Human-Machine Interface (HMI). 
         [0023]    Referring now to  FIG. 2 , an implementation of the present invention is shown for configuring offline motor drives  16  within the context of the software application  24  used to program an industrial controller  12 . The software application  24  provides a configuration project window  36  into which user interfaces  38  for one or more motor drives may be displayed. The user interfaces  38  are provided by a drive page view plug-in  40  that provides a launch/navigation point for the controller programming tool and the specific components of an instantiated motor drive object  32 . In the illustrated example, two separate instantiated motor drive objects  32  are shown, with each having an associated drive page  42  that is provided to the software application for viewing as a user interface  38  within the context of the configuration project window  36 . Changes made in the user interfaces  38  are automatically communicated to the instantiated motor drive objects  32  by a drives services plug-in  44  that provides a respective drives profile manager  46  for each instantiated object  32  to provide a mapping between the configuration data input on the user interfaces  38  to actual parameters of the motor drive. 
         [0024]    As shown in  FIG. 2 , multiple instantiated motor drive objects  32  may be simultaneously active and configured. Moreover, as further shown in the figure, multiple applications can access different instantiated motor drive objects. For example, diagnostic application  48 , such as DriveExecutive, part of the RSLogix suite of products from Rockwell Automation of Milwaukee, Wis., may interface with one instantiated object  50  whereas the other instantiated objects are accessed by the programming tool. 
         [0025]    As shown in  FIG. 3 , when a motor drive  52  is online, i.e., connected to the controller  12 , multiple applications such as the drives services plug-in  44 , and separate diagnostic applications  48 ,  54  may access a single instantiated object  56  associated with motor drive  52 . Also, changes made to the configuration data of instantiated object  56  are automatically visible by the other applications accessing the instantiated object  56 . In this regard, changes made to an instantiated object  56  are synchronized so that all applications viewing that instantiated object  56  see the changes in the configuration data. 
         [0026]    Referring now to  FIG. 4 , the present invention is also embodied in a method for configuring a motor drive within the context of an industrial controller programming tool  24 . The method  58 , which may be embodied in a computer program stored on a tangible and reproducible medium, is initiated to create a configuration file per process block  60  that is stored in the context of the industrial controller programming tool. After creating the configuration file per process block  60 , the programmer then selects a motor drive model per process block  62  that corresponds to a motor drive to be used in the industrial process. The motor drive model is associated with a motor drive object that can then be instantiated per process block  64  to enable the programmer to configure an instantiated object of the motor drive. The instantiated object  32  guides the programmer though the configuration process by presenting user interface components per process block  66  that allow the programmer to establish values for various parameters of the motor drive per process block  68 . The configuration of the instantiated object  32  is then stored per process block  70  as a corresponding image in the controller that is transferred to the motor drive during finalization of the motor drive configuration at process block  72 . 
         [0027]    While configuration of a motor drive has been described, it is understood that other controlled components of an industrial process may be similarly configured. 
         [0028]    The present invention has been described in terms of the preferred embodiment, and it is recognized that equivalents, alternatives, and modifications, aside from those expressly stated, are possible and within the scope of the appending claims.