REAL TIME DATA EXPANSION FOR DISTRIBUTED I/O

Abstract

The present exemplary embodiment relates to industrial machine control and corresponding communication protocols. In one embodiment, the machine control communication protocol is Distributed I/O that has Extended Data Transfer (EDT) capability. It finds particular application with expanding the underutilized bandwidth of the EDT to gather/send secondary input and output data within a control system. In one aspect, a system communicates data from a network to an input/output module. An adapter module receives data. The adapter module includes a network data component that receives data from a network including an output data component that receives standard data and an output expansion data component that receives cyclic EDT data. A Distributed bus data component receives data from the network data component. A Distributed extended data transfer (EDT) module receives data from the adapter module via the Distributed bus data component, wherein standard output data is communicated utilizing a standard data scan, and expansion output data is communicated utilizing a cyclic EDT protocol.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the machine control system utilizing Distributed I/O, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 2 illustrates standard and EDT input data and standard and EDT output data assemblies, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates a cyclic EDT communication word that includes sixteen status bits, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 4 illustrates a process that can be employed to utilize a real time data expansion protocol with a Distributed I/O module, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 5 illustrates the input data and input expansion data block system, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 6 illustrates an output data and output expansion data block system, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 7A illustrates an equation employed to determine the size of input expansion data, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 7B illustrates an equation to determine the size of output expansion data, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 8 illustrates a process of communication between an adapter and a cyclic EDT module, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.

Claims

1. A system that communicates data from a network to an input/output module, comprising: an adapter module that receives data, the adapter module includes: a network data component that receives data from a network including, an output data component that receives standard data; andan output expansion data component that receives cyclic EDT data; anda Distributed bus data component that receives data from the network data component, the Distributed bus data component includes, an output data component that receives standard data from the output component contained in the network data component; andan output expansion data component that receives cyclic EDT data from the expansion data component contained in the network data component,a Distributed extended data transfer (EDT) module that receives data from the adapter module via the Distributed bus data component, wherein standard output data is communicated utilizing a standard data scan, and expansion output data is communicated utilizing a cyclic EDT protocol.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein data in the Distributed EDT module is contained in one or more cyclic EDT assemblies.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the one or more assemblies contain an access definition of cyclic EDT data.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the size of each of the one or more cyclic EDT assemblies is defined by an assembly number.

5. The system according to claim 2, wherein the data is assigned to one or more available assemblies.

6. The system according to claim 2, wherein each assembly is monitored by one or more status bits in a cyclic EDT communication word.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein the lowest set assembly is assigned to the lowest available status bit in the cyclic EDT communication word.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the adapter module can determine the size of at least one of output expansion data and cyclic EDT set data assemblies.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the adapter module separates output expansion data and one or more associated cyclic set buffers and transfers them to the Distributed EDT module.

10. The system according to claim 6, wherein the adapter module will set an associated bit in the cyclic EDT communication status word when there are no communication errors between the adapter module and the cyclic EDT assemblies.

11. The system according to claim 6, wherein the adapter module will clear an associated bit in the cyclic EDT communication status word when there are one or more communication errors between the adapter module and the cyclic EDT assemblies.

12. A method to utilize a real time data extension protocol with a Distributed I/O module: scanning one or more modules to determine if it includes at least one I/O module;determining if at least one of the I/O modules is a Distributed I/O module;identifying at least one cyclic EDT assembly in the at least one Distributed I/O module; andscheduling a cyclic EDT in the one or more assemblies in the EDT module.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein a cyclic EDT queue is initiated to the one or more assemblies in the EDT module, the list of cyclic EDT assemblies can be scanned and automatically re-queued.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein when an EDT transfer to a cyclic EDT module is required by an instruction, the instruction can be placed in a queue and executed in a future cycle.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein upon completion of the instruction, the execution of one or more cyclic EDT transfers is resumed.

16. A system that communicates data from an input/output module to a network, comprising: a Distributed extended data transfer (EDT) module that receives data from one or more sources, the Distributed EDT module includes, an input data component that receives standard data; andan input expansion data component that receives expansion data, andan adapter module that receives data that receives data from the distributed EDT module, wherein standard output data is communicated utilizing a standard data scan, and expansion output data is communicated utilizing a cyclic EDT protocol, the adapter module includes: a Distributed bus data component that receives data from the Distributed EDT module, the Distributed bus data component includes, an input data component that receives standard data from the input component contained in the Distributed EDT module; andan input expansion data component that receives data from the input expansion data component contained in the Distributed EDT module,a network data component that receives data from the Distributed bus data component and communicates it to a network, the network data component includes, an input data component that receives standard data from the input data component contained in the Distributed bus data component; andan input expansion data component that receives expansion data from the input expansion data component contained in the Distributed bus data component; anda cyclic EDT communication status component that schedules data received by the input expansion data component.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein data in the Distributed EDT module is contained in one or more assemblies.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the data is assigned to one or more available assemblies by the cyclic EDT communication status component.

19. A method for facilitating communication between an adapter and a cyclic EDT module, comprising: placing the adapter in an EDT idle mode;placing the cyclic EDT module in idle mode;sending the lower half of an attribute index number to the cyclic EDT module;echoing the lower half of the attribute index number;verifying the lower half of the index number by the adapter;sending the upper half of the index number to the cyclic EDT module reading the upper half of the attribute index number or EDT idle from the cyclic EDT moduledetermining if the upper half of the attribute index or EDT idle was received from the cyclic EDT modulesetting the EDT idle state or performing an EDT transfer as appropriate.

20. The method according to claim 19, further including: processing in a manner consistent an operation for the associated attribute at once the EDT idle state has been set by the cyclic EDT module;setting the EDT if the adapter determines that the EDT should go into an idle state;holding data for the associated cyclic EDT get attribute;holding a bit associated in cyclic EDT communication status; andtransferring normal EDT if the upper half of the attribute index number is to be employed.