Patent ID: 7836217

Claim:
A method for managing Profibus device information in a distributed control system wherein a Profibus device is communicatively coupled via a network link to an I/O module assembly, wherein the I/O module assembly receives Profibus device messages from the Profibus device containing information relating to connected device modules, and wherein the I/O module assembly includes one or more tasks for extracting and processing information contained within the received Profibus device messages according to a Profibus device configuration, the method comprising: receiving, by the I/O module assembly, input parameter data originating from a Profibus device message issued by a connected Profibus device; processing, by an I/O request processing task, in accordance with the Profibus device configuration, the Profibus device message by performing the additional steps of: extracting input parameter values from the Profibus device message according to input parameter configuration entries in the Profibus device configuration, and depositing the input parameter values in an I/O data repository on the I/O module assembly, the depositing step including storing: a measured value for a first input parameter, and a status value for a first status parameter corresponding to the first input parameter; maintaining, by the I/O module assembly, a reference linking the first status parameter to the first input parameter; and providing, by the I/O module assembly, a data status value with the measured value for the first input parameter in accordance with an I/O read operation executed on the I/O module assembly wherein the data status value is based on the status value for the first status parameter.