Patent ID: 8170696

Claim:
A process control simulator, comprising: a simulated data calculation system; and a plant control system, wherein the simulated data calculation system and the plant control system are mutually communicated with each other through at least one communication interface; wherein the simulated data calculation system includes a plant model executing part for simulating behavior of a real plant and a first time-series memory area for storing simulated data in time-series fashion, the simulated data being a process value calculated by the plant model executing part; wherein the plant control system includes a real programmable controller including: a program executing part for executing a program for control of the real plant, a referring-setting memory area for storing the simulated data from the first-time series memory, and for storing control data generated by the execution of the program, wherein the simulated data stored in the referring-setting memory area is referred to by the program executing part for the execution of the program, wherein the control data is generated based on the simulated data and on a calculation result from the program, a second time-series memory area for storing the simulated data from the first time-series memory area, an input-device interface for storing process data received from an input/output device (PI/O) of the real plant into said referring-setting memory area, and an output-device interface for transmitting the control data from said referring-setting memory area to the input/output device (PI/O); wherein the plant control system further includes a virtual input/output processor which is configured, if a virtual input/output request for accepting a predetermined operation from the simulated data calculation system, to deactivate the input-device interface and not accept data from the input/output device, store the simulated data from the first time-series memory area into the second time-series memory area, store the simulated data stored in the second time-series memory area into said referring-setting memory area, and transmit the control data from said referring-setting memory area to the plant model executing part through the at least one communication interface to activate the plant model executing part; wherein the plant control system is configured, if the virtual input/output processor accepts the input/output request, to store the simulated data from the first time-series memory area to the second time-series memory area, execute the program, and output the control data generated by the program executing part through the at least one communication interface to the plant model executing part; and wherein the plant model executing part is configured, when the virtual input/output processor accepts the input/output request, to simulate the behavior of the real plant, generate the simulated data based on the control data, and store the simulated data into the first time-series memory area.