Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7773715?dq=6,757,682
Timestamp: 2014-12-25 21:28:03
Document Index: 789303177

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 2006138032', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'Application No. 200580010070', 'Application No. 200580010070', 'Application No. 05724798', 'Application No. 200580010070', 'Application No. 06845045']

Patent US7773715 - Two wire transmitter with isolated can output - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsA process variable transmitter that preferably includes a transmitter output circuit that provides bidirectional HART and controller area network communication transceiver lines. The transmitter output circuit also includes sensor circuit interface contacts. An isolated circuit couples to the sensor...http://www.google.com/patents/US7773715?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7773715 - Two wire transmitter with isolated can outputAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7773715 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 10/812,192Publication dateAug 10, 2010Filing dateMar 29, 2004Priority dateSep 6, 2002Fee statusPaidAlso published asCN1938734A, CN103471637A, EP1733365A2, US8208581, US20040184517, US20100299542, WO2005104056A2, WO2005104056A3Publication number10812192, 812192, US 7773715 B2, US 7773715B2, US-B2-7773715, US7773715 B2, US7773715B2InventorsBrian Lee Westfield, Kelly Michael OrthOriginal AssigneeRosemount Inc.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (101), Non-Patent Citations (87), Referenced by (3), Classifications (16), Legal Events (2) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetTwo wire transmitter with isolated can outputUS 7773715 B2Abstract A process variable transmitter that preferably includes a transmitter output circuit that provides bidirectional HART and controller area network communication transceiver lines. The transmitter output circuit also includes sensor circuit interface contacts. An isolated circuit couples to the sensor circuit interface contacts. The isolated circuit includes sensor circuitry sensing a process variable. The isolated circuit further comprises a galvanic isolation barrier galvanically isolating the sensor circuitry from the HART and controller area network transceiver lines. A stacked power supply provides power management. Other aspects may include a controller area network current limiter diagnostic output, timed sequencing of microcontroller startup and shutdown, a local operator interface and power management.
1. A transmitter that controls a loop current, comprising:
positive and negative leads carrying the loop current, the loop current including first, second, third and fourth currents in the transmitter;
a loop current controller that includes a resistor that carries the first current and that controls the first current as a function of both a process variable and a sense voltage at the resistor;
a first regulator coupling to the positive lead, providing a first voltage, and coupling the second current through the resistor;
a second regulator coupling to the first voltage, providing a second voltage, and coupling the third current through the resistor;
a first load that carries a first load current between the first voltage and the second voltage;
a second load that includes a controller area network load, and that couples a second load current between the second voltage and the negative lead, the second load current bypassing the resistor; and
the loop current controller sensing the second voltage to correct the first current for the load current that bypasses the resistor.
2. The transmitter of claim 1 wherein the first and second loads are stacked in an electrical series circuit, and at least a portion of the first load current passes through the second load.
3. The transmitter of claim 1 wherein the sum of the first load current and the second load current exceed a lower limit of the loop current.
4. The transmitter of claim 1 wherein the first and second load have load characteristics that are not matched to the supply characteristics of the loop current.
5. The transmitter of claim 1 wherein the loop current controller controls the first current based on feedback so that the loop current indicates the process variable.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION The present application is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/236,874, filed Sep. 6, 2002 for inventors Steven R. Trimble, Kelly M. Orth, Richard M. Nelson and David G. Tyson and titled �LOW POWER PHYSICAL LAYER FOR A BUS IN AN INDUSTRIAL TRANSMITTER,� the content of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Process variable transmitters are used to sense process variables and provide electrical outputs that represent the magnitudes of the process variables. As electronic and sensor components in process variable transmitters are increasingly miniaturized, and more functions are added to the transmitters, the circuitry inside the transmitter becomes packed very densely, leading to new power management, noise and interference problems internal to the transmitter.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Disclosed is a process variable transmitter comprising a transmitter output circuit that provides bidirectional HART and controller area network communication transceiver lines. The transmitter output circuit also comprises sensor circuit interface contacts.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 illustrates electrical connections between circuit boards in a two-wire process variable transmitter that includes HART and CAN transceiver lines.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATED EMBODIMENTS In the embodiments described below, problems with power management, noise and interference in high density circuitry in a process variable transmitter with a CAN transceiver line are alleviated. Low level sensing circuitry is referenced to process ground and a galvanic isolation barrier is provided between the sensing circuitry and HART and controller area network (CAN) transceiver lines. The HART and CAN transceiver lines are not able to effectively couple noise into low level sensing circuits, and the transmitter can take advantage of miniaturized components to make a compact transmitter.
The microcontroller (protocol converter) 220 couples input and output data for the sensor board 200 through a galvanically isolated serial bi-directional communication circuit 236. The circuit 236 includes an isolation transformer (such as illustrated in FIG. 6) that is part of the galvanic barrier 204. The galvanic barrier 204 isolates circuitry on sensor board 200 from the contacts J5-1 through J5-8. With galvanic isolation, there are no electrical conduction paths in the transmitter 100 between the contacts J5-1 through J5-8 and the low level circuitry on the sensor board 200. The galvanic isolation barrier permits the low level circuitry on sensor board 200 to be connected to the grounded metal housing 112 for noise immunity while the high level circuits in transmitter 100 are referenced to the loop terminals 104, 106 to avoid stray ground currents. The galvanic isolation barrier 204 prevents stray ground currents between the current loop and process ground. Galvanic isolation can also be accomplished by the use of optical isolators in place of an isolation transformer. Information and power pass through the galvanic barrier, however, electric currents are blocked and do not pass through the galvanic barrier.
The CAN support circuit 403 also comprises a CAN controller 406. In a preferred arrangement, the CAN controller 406 comprises a type MCP2510 controller from Microchip Technology Inc. of Chandler, Ariz. The CAN controller 406 receives CAN-formatted communications on a CANRX line 408 and transmits CAN-formatted communications at a TXCAN output 410. In a gating circuit 412, the TXCAN output 410 is combined with a KEYS gating output 414 from the microcontroller 404. When active, the KEYS output indicates that the microcontroller 404 is in a process of receiving keyed-in configuration information via a local operator interface (LOI). The gating circuit 412 prevents transmission of CAN formatted communication to the CANTXO line 416 while a configuration process using keys on the LOI is underway. An exemplary LOI is described in connection with FIG. 4 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,107 B1 Roper et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,107 B1 Roper et al. is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety. The LOI is external to the transmitter and can connect to an optional lead 813 (FIG. 8) for communication with a microcontroller (such as microcontroller 852 in FIG. 9B).
Referring back to FIG. 3, bi-directional CAN signals are communicated with CAN external device 304 along line 306 to contact J1-8 on the RFI board 300. Contact J1-8 on the RFI board 300 connects to contact J1-8 on the output board 400 as illustrated in FIG. 1. Contact J1-8 on the output board 400 connects via conductor 426 (FIG. 4) to contact J4-3 on the output board 400. Contact J4-3 on the output board connects to contact J4A-3 on the CAN board 500 as illustrated in FIG. 5A. The CAN external device 304 is thus connected through a series of conductors and contacts to the conductor 504 as illustrated in FIG. 5A.
When the gating circuit 412 (FIG. 4) generates outbound CAN communications on the CANTXO line, these outbound CAN communications are conducted through connector J4-5 (FIG. 4) and connector J4A-5 (FIG. 5A) to line 510 (CANTXO) in FIG. 5A. The circuitry in FIG. 5A amplifies the relatively low power CAN communications CANTXO signal on line 510 to provide a higher power level that is coupled along line 512 to line 504 and on to the CAN external device 304. When the CAN external device 304 generates CAN communications that are inbound to the transmitter 100, then the amplifier 550 in FIG. 5B receives the inbound CAN communications on line 504 and amplifies the signals to provide the CANRX signal on line 514. The CANRX signal is conducted by connector J4A-4 (FIG. 5B) to connector J4-4 (FIG. 4) to line 408 (FIG. 4) and provides the CANRX signal the CAN controller 406.
At a second end of the transmitter 800, four flying leads 812 emerge from a sealed electrical feedthrough connector 814. The flying leads 812 include a LOOP+, LOOP−, CAN and GROUND leads. Flying leads can be conveniently and economically connected to field wiring by using pigtail splices, twist-on wire connector and crimped splicing devices.
The electronic circuitry in the transmitter 820 requires power supply voltages that are regulated for reliable operation. Accordingly, the transmitter 820 includes a first voltage regulator 830. In order to maximize the power available to electronic circuitry in the transmitter 820, the first voltage regulator 830 is adjusted to provide the largest possible regulated voltage output 840 that can be reliably generated from the minimum unregulated voltage applied at leads WP1, WP2. Taking into account voltage drops that are used up by RFI chokes 832, 834, reverse polarity protection diode 836 and current sensing resistor 838, the largest possible regulated voltage in one embodiment is about 9.5 volts relative to a current summing node 831, also called RETURN 831. of the 4.000 milliamperes of current available from the current loop 824, only about 3.1 milliamperes of current is available at the first voltage output 840 of the first voltage regulator 830 in this embodiment. The remaining 0.9 milliamperes of current are reserved for maintaining an adequate current through a darlington transistor 842 to ensure that loop current ILOOP can be modulated by the transmitter 820 to produce a +/− 0.5 mA HART signal at a low current of 3.6 mA commonly indicative of low level alarms. A standard established by NAMUR (Normenarbeitsgemeinshaft f�r Mess- und Regeltechnik der chemischen Industrie) requires that current on a 4-20 mA loop drop to 3.6 mA or lower to indicate an alarm condition of a transmitter. When the transmitter is in this alarm condition, HART modulation can take the current lower by an additional 0.5 mA. The transmitter's power supplies must be in regulation with only 3.1 mA of current in a worst case condition. The transmitter's various power supply functions need to draw less than 3.1 milliamperes, and then the transmitter 820 adjusts a current I1 (through the darlington transistor 842) so that the loop current is at a level in the range of 4-20 milliamperes that indicates the level of the process variable, and also at a level of 3.6 mA that indicates an alarm condition.
In one embodiment, the total power available at the first voltage output 840 is thus about P=VI=(9.5 volts) (3.1 mA)=29.45 milliwatts. This total power available is adequate, in terms of the number of milliwatts, to energize a controller area network (CAN) circuit load 844 along with other transmitter loads such as analog circuit load 846, transformer drive circuit load 848, modac load 850 and digital and microcomputer circuit load 852.
It is found, however, that the voltage and current characteristics (load characteristics) of the transmitter circuit loads are not well matched to the voltage and current characteristic (supply characteristic) of the first voltage regulator 830. The transmitter circuit loads require supply currents that add up to about 4.1 milliamperes, greatly exceeding the 3.1 milliamperes available from the first voltage regulator 830. The CAN circuitry load 844, in particular, requires about 0.6 milliamperes under worst case conditions when the external CAN devices draw 0.5 milliamperes. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the particular levels of current mentioned in this applications are merely exemplary, and that other levels of current can be used in design variations within the scope of the 4-20 mA standard, the NAMUR 3.6 mA standard and the +/− 0.5 mA HART modulation standard. The supply current limit is set so as to not disrupt the functioning of the current loop within the standards.
The transmitter 820 includes the loop current controller 843. The loop current controller 843 includes the current sense resistor 838. The current sense resistor 838 carries the first current I1, the second current I2, and the third current I3. The current sense resistor 838 develops a sense voltage at node 831 that is fed back along feedback line 845 to an input of the loop current controller 843. The loop current controller 843 controls the first current I1 as a function of both the process variable 825 (an input provided by the MODAC 850) and the sense voltage at node 831. The current sense resistor 838, however, does not carry the current I4. The current I4 bypasses the current sense resistor and returns directly to the negative lead WP2.
The transmitter 820 includes a first load 848 (the transformer drive circuit load 848 which drives a transformer such as shown in FIG. 7) that draws a first load current 849 that flows between the first voltage output 840 and the second voltage output 856.
In order to start-up properly when power is first applied or to recover from a shorted CAN BUS 504, a start up circuit 586 provides an alternate path that provides current to the CAN BUS 504. To meet this requirement, a PNP transistor 902 in start up circuit 586 turns on to provide power to the CAN BUS 504 after the bulk storage capacitor 904 is fully charged. The startup circuit 586 pulls the CAN bus high at start up or upon fault recovery after the bus has been shorted to ground. The startup circuit 586 provides an orderly power up and efficient use of power by allowing the bulk capacitor 904 to fully charge before providing any current to the CAN BUS 504. The CAN physical layer turns the recessive driver 582 off when the CAN BUS 504 is low to conserve current. This poses a problem at start up or after the bus has been shorted to ground. Since the bus is low in either of these cases, the recessive driver 582 will be turned off. Nothing would pull the bus high to start it up or recover form a shorted condition. The bipolar PNP transistor 902 provides the pull up path to perform this function. The emitter of the transistor 902 is connected to line 906 (CAN VDD) by way of the resistor 908, the base of transistor 902 is connected to +3V (either directly as shown or through a resistor) and the collector of transistor 902 is connected to the CAN BUS 504. In this embodiment, once line 906 reaches about 3.6 volts, transistor 902 will turn on and source current to the CAN BUS 504. This creates a 3.6 Volt rail 906 which is sufficient for the physical layer requirements. Once the rail 906 is at 3.6 Volts, capacitor 904 is fully charged so there is no where to store additional charge. It is acceptable to supply current to the CAN BUS 504 as a pull up mechanism.
Each time that the CAN BUS 504 is restarted, the microcontroller 950 automatically retrieves the current version of CAN configuration data from the EEPROM circuit 952 and then uses the CAN circuit 956 to transmit the current version of CAN configuration data to the external CAN device 930.
From time to time, there can be momentary power outages (�brown-outs�) on the two wire 4-20 mA loop that energizes the transmitter. If one of these brown-outs occurs while the microcontroller 950 is writing CAN configuration data to the EEPROM 952, the writing of data may not be completed, and the stored CAN configuration 954 can be corrupted or obsolete. After this happens, the process control system may subsequently attempt to communicate with the external CAN device 930 assuming that the CAN external device 930 is currently configured, when in fact the CAN external device 930 has an obsolete or corrupted configuration. Malfunction of the control system can result from this mismatch of assumed and actual CAN configuration data. In order to reduce the possibility of such a mismatch, circuitry described below is provided to prevent such a mismatch.
The digital and microcontroller circuits (such as digital and microcontroller circuits 852 in FIG. 9B) in a transmitter draw currents from a +3V power supply that include relatively large current spikes. These relatively large current spikes can cause instability in the output of the +3V voltage regulator circuit 1000. A current spike from one circuit can act as a noise input on other circuits connected to the +3V supply. In particular, the microcomputer 950, the EEPROM 952 and Hall effect switches 1002, 1004 tend to generate noise spikes.
FIG. 13 illustrates a simplified timing diagram of energization of transmitter circuitry, such as the transmitter circuitry illustrated in FIGS. 9A, 9B, 11, 12. In FIG. 13, a horizontal axis 1050 represents time and vertical axes represent whether full energization is present for each of the signals represented. A �high� level indicates that a signal has reached a full energization level, and a �low� level indicates less than full energization.
The timing diagram illustrates sequencing of full energization of supply rails in a transmitter so that distribution of energy during start up and shut down is biased toward energizing a microcontroller early during start up and also biased toward de-energizing the microcontroller late during shut down. The microcontroller includes a software �boot up� sequence that is longer than the start up sequence for other circuits in the transmitter.
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No. 10/125,286, filed Apr. 18, 2002, Behm et al.Referenced byCiting PatentFiling datePublication dateApplicantTitleUS8264373 *Jan 4, 2008Sep 11, 2012Rosemount Tank Radar AbGauging system having wireless capabilityUS20090174570 *Jan 4, 2008Jul 9, 2009Lennart HaggGauging system having wireless capabilityWO2013057537A1 *Oct 21, 2011Apr 25, 2013Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.Integrated circuit device, controller area network driver module and method therefor* Cited by examinerClassifications U.S. Classification375/377, 455/69, 340/870.16, 340/870.18, 375/219International ClassificationG01D3/08, G08C19/02, G01L19/08, H04L23/00, G01D11/24Cooperative ClassificationG01D11/24, G01D11/245, G01D3/08European ClassificationG01D11/24S, G01D3/08, G01D11/24Legal EventsDateCodeEventDescriptionFeb 10, 2014FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 4Mar 29, 2004ASAssignmentOwner name: ROSEMOUNT INC., MINNESOTAFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:WESTFIELD, BRIAN LEE;ORTH, KELLY MICHAEL;REEL/FRAME:015175/0401Effective date: 20040322RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services©2012 Google