CN100511103C - Human-machine interface system with equipment control bridge and its design operation method - Google Patents

Abstract

A man-machine interface system with a device control bridge and a design operation method thereof are provided. The main system is provided with a first microprocessor; the device control bridge is provided with a second microprocessor, is connected to the main system through a bus, and is connected to the device end through a device communication port, wherein the device control bridge has a function of processing communication with the device end, and returns the state of the device end to the main system. During design, the picture component and the equipment address conversion table are respectively designed in a parallel mode, and then the picture component and the equipment address conversion table are combined. In operation, the device control bridge writes the state of the device side apparatus into the internal memory; and the main system reads the internal memory to obtain the state of the equipment side device.

Description

Man-machine interface system with device control bridge and its design and operation method

technical field

The invention relates to a man-machine interface system and a design method, in particular to a man-machine interface system with a device control bridge and a design method.

Background technique

The human-machine interface generally refers to the hardware and software that realize communication and interaction between the user and the computer. The work covered includes: data input devices such as keyboards, mice, and digital pads, and output devices such as display screens and sound-generating devices.

The system design architecture of traditional human-machine interface products usually integrates various hardware communication interfaces such as USB, RS-232, RS-422, RS-485, CAN BUS or Ether Net on an embedded hardware platform. The main central processing unit (CPU) on this system undertakes the work required for the operation of all human-machine interfaces, including screen processing, calculation, output and input device control, and communication control. In the case that users have increasingly high requirements for the fineness of the screen, it is also necessary to take into account the real-time problem of communication (Real Time), which is an incompatible requirement for a low-to-medium price central processing unit. .

Another issue in the design of HMI products is how to achieve communication protocols compatible with various equipment manufacturers. This involves a HMI product may face the design problem of changing the hardware and software architecture at any time under the customer's request.

With the continuous innovation of wafer production technology, microprocessors have gradually integrated the controller interface circuits of various peripheral devices into the microprocessor architecture, which takes a microprocessor core as the main body to be responsible for numerical and logic Operation, and then integrate some specific controller units, such as memory controller, cache (Cache) controller, timing (Timer) controller, communication controller (such as..SPI, USB, UART, etc.)..., This is the microprocessor architecture called SOC (System OnChip).

Today's new generation of human-machine interface (Human Machine Interface, hereinafter referred to as HMI) system design is gradually changed from the previous design method based on simple single chip or microprocessor combined with the required peripheral control chip layout. Design with SOC as the core. This will help to increase the system bus speed, simplify the complexity of system design, and also reduce the number of parts and cost of peripheral controllers. The emergence of SOC in the market is a new revolution for man-machine products.

However, as far as the hardware architecture of low-priced human-machine products currently on the market is concerned, a microprocessor is responsible for controlling the operation of the entire human-machine system. No matter under the multi-task or single-task operating system, the resource allocation of the microprocessor is stretched. Especially in the industrial control environment, the problem of real-time has been discussed for a long time. Therefore, how to design a low-cost and high-efficiency HMI product has been expected by the market.

At present, in general HMI products, in order to achieve a balance in design cost, the priority is usually to sacrifice the drawing speed or the fineness of the screen. But in the trend of HMI products in the future, LCD with high image quality and high resolution will become the mainstream. Although the next generation of microprocessors may have built-in graphics accelerators, the applications will still be dominated by consumer products. If a microprocessor platform based on consumer products is used on human-machine products, there is still no advantage in terms of the application characteristics of human-machine products, because it is impossible for the microprocessor to share enough performance at any time to handle the comparison. Complicated real-time communication protocol calculations. Therefore, when such common man-machine products encounter more complex real-time communication protocols, they will inevitably have to use external hardware protocol processing modules.

Another point of consideration is that when using the communication controller built in the SOC itself, the control software and the HMI software are integrated, so they cannot operate independently. When the HMI changes the connected device, it is also necessary to change the supporting communication protocol between the HMI and it at the same time. Moreover, for the software development work of human-machine products, it is also necessary to continuously add new communication protocols and update versions for different devices, which is a problem for human-machine manufacturers and customers.

Fig. 1 is the hardware structure of traditional basic man-machine interface, and it utilizes a microprocessor 100A to control the work of all man-machine interfaces, including microprocessor chip 10A, LCD module 20A, memory IC 30A, user input device (comprising touch panel 40A and numeric keypad 42A) and communication port 50A. The microprocessor chip 10A may include a microprocessor 100A, a display controller 102A, a GPIO controller 104A, a Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART, Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) controller 106A, and a CAN bus controller 108A. Among them, the memory IC30A is a memory block (such as Flash ROM, SDRAM and SRAM...etc.) for storing execution programs and data, and the UART controller 106A is used to extend RS-232, RS-422 and RS-485.. . Circuit control modules with communication functions.

Figure 2 is the software operation mode of the traditional man-machine interface. In the general HMI screen design method, the screen designer needs to determine the destination device at the beginning of the design, because this parameter needs to be assigned to the corresponding controller in each screen component added later. A device endpoint. Therefore, when planning the mapping relationship between screen components and destination devices, designers should consider screen components, destination devices and communication protocols at the same time. The inconvenience of this method is that the method of direct mapping with the destination device description will be very inconvenient once a different destination device needs to be modified, and there will be a large number of repeated modification actions. be processed.

Moreover, while designing the screen, the user needs to plan the components according to the different characteristics of each device, so the user may not be able to take into account at the same time or think about whether some components have special considerations if they need to replace different destination devices in the future . Therefore, the current design methods of human-machine interface products are faced with the trouble of redesigning the screen when the destination device is replaced.

Figure 3 is a flow chart of the software operation of the general man-machine interface. When designing the man-machine screen (step S100), the man-machine screen designer first needs to consider the brand and characteristics of the controller to which the man-machine will be connected, so as to determine the communication protocol between the man-machine and the controller (step S102) . Then select components according to various controllers (step S106), set the attributes of each component in the screen (step S108), and set the address and data type of the component mapping device (step S110). If the man-machine screen designer is required to change the brand or model of the controller during or after the design (step S104), at this time, the attributes of each screen component must be updated according to the new controller. Step S112 checks whether all the components are completed, if there are one thousand components in the screen, the setting of one thousand components needs to be corrected again. Then perform the steps of compiling and connecting the screen data and communication protocol (step S114) and downloading to the man-machine interface (step S116). This design method is a single-line workflow, and the design cannot be updated temporarily in the middle. Once the specification of the (target) controller is changed, it will face the trouble of starting all over again.

It can be seen from the above that the current man-machine products are not flexible enough and do not have the advantages of modularization, regardless of the design structure of hardware and software. Therefore, a low-cost hardware platform is needed and the product can be designed in terms of software and hardware. The man-machine operation interface module and the communication conversion module are designed as independent architectures. If two independent processors can be used to process their respective Work, so as to achieve the purpose of designing a high-efficiency man-machine interface at low cost, so that the manufacturer and customers can get a win-win situation.

Contents of the invention

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to adopt a modular framework in design, and only need to define a method for the communication between the man-machine operation interface module and the communication conversion module, and the method is customized by the development company and does not need to be followed. Any special standard, so that all the communication work that is diverse, complex and requires real-time requirements can be moved to the communication conversion module for operation. In this way, the system can be divided into two without interdependence; either side can carry out independent design upgrades (updates) at any time. Such an architecture can greatly reduce the burden of updating the system for both customers and producers.

Another object of the present invention is to separate the communication function part (including software and hardware part) that needs to be customized for customers to change the design frequently and become a module, and divide the current man-machine interface product into two parts. Parts, that is (1) man-machine interface module and (2) communication conversion module, which is conducive to rapid changes in products to meet various needs.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a human-machine interface system with a device control bridge, which mainly includes:

The input/output operation interface module is composed of a first microprocessor as the main circuit to process the output/input operation of signals. The input/output operation interface module has an input mode such as keyboard, touch panel or mouse (pointer) for operation, and an output device such as LCD, CRT or any display or printing device. The output-input operation interface module also has an expanded bus interface, which can be connected with the communication control module described later, so as to realize the purpose of mutual transmission of signals.

The device control bridge (Device Bridge), which consists of a second microprocessor constitutes the main circuit to process the communication protocol and signal conversion with various devices, and contains an independent program running memory or interface with the above-mentioned output and input operations Program or data memory that is commonly accessed by modules. The device control bridge also has a bus interface, which can be connected with the aforementioned output and input operation interface modules, so as to realize the purpose of mutual transmission of signals.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for operating a human-machine interface system with a device control bridge, which mainly includes the following features:

The program of the input and output operation interface module operates independently, and the status of all controller devices is obtained by reading the shared memory (such as dual-port memory) on the communication control module, without communicating with the controller device using a special communication protocol. obtain.

The program of the device control bridge operates independently, uses a special communication protocol to communicate with the controller device, and reflects the status in the internal memory of the controller device and the device control bridge at the same time, forming a cache function.

The device control bridge can directly modify the brand and model of the controller device through the updated device address translation table uploaded by the user, without modifying any man-machine interface screen design files on the input/output operation interface module.

The software of the I/O operation interface module can directly control whether the processor of the device control bridge operates or stops. The input and output operation interface module has the control right of the whole man-machine interface system.

The I/O operation interface module can download the data files stored in the internal memory of the main body or on the external memory card to the program required for the device control bridge to run.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the hardware structure of traditional basic man-machine interface;

Fig. 2 is the software operation mode of traditional man-machine interface;

Fig. 3 is the software operation flowchart of general man-machine interface;

Fig. 4A, 4B are the hardware platform block diagram of this patent;

5 is a schematic diagram of a parallel design process according to the present invention;

Fig. 6 is a flowchart of the present invention;

7A to 7C are device address translation tables of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a processing flow of the man-machine interface screen component.

In the accompanying drawings, the list of parts represented by each label is as follows:

current technology

10A microprocessor chip 20A LCD module

30A Memory IC 40A Touch Panel

42A Numeric keypad 50A Communication port

100A Microprocessor 102 A Display Controller

104A GPIO controller                             106A UART controller

108A CAN bus controller

this invention

10 Microprocessor chip 20 LCD module

30 memory IC 40 touch panel

42 Numeric keypad 50 Communication port

100 Microprocessor 102 Display controller

104 GPIO controller 106 UART controller

108 CAN bus controller

60 device control bridge 600 second microprocessor

602 UART controller 604 Dual port RAM

606 SRAM 608, 610 main memory bus

620 internal bus 630 transceiver

Detailed ways

Referring to FIGS. 4A and 4B , the hardware platform of the present invention separates the man-machine operation interface circuit from the communication function of the device, and the independent communication function circuit of the device is called a device control bridge 60 . The device control bridge 60 has an independently operating microprocessor that handles communications with the device to obtain or control (set) the status of the device. 4A, 4B, the device control bridge 60 has a second microprocessor (MCU) 600, a UART controller (or CAN controller) 602, a dual-port random access memory (dual-port RAM for short) 604, static Random Access Memory (SRAM) 606 , Main Memory Buses 608 , 610 , Transceiver 630 and Internal Bus 620 . The operating mode of this man-machine operation interface system with device control bridge is as follows: when the main microprocessor 10 of the man-machine operation interface starts to operate, the microprocessor 600 of the device control bridge 60 needs the The program code (Program) and the communication protocol translation table (Protocol translator) are stored in the SRAM 606 in the device control bridge, and then the device control bridge 60 is notified to start operation through the control of the GPIO 104 .

After the device control bridge 60 completes a communication cycle (CommunicationCycle) by itself, it will write the state of the device side into the dual-port RAM 604 (or general memory device) located in the device control bridge 60, and can use such as interrupt Notify the main system by means of At any point in time, the microprocessor of the main system can write the state of the device at the device to the dual-port RAM 604, and transmit it to the device through the communication process of the device control bridge 60. On the other hand, it is also possible to retrieve the state of the device at the device side without having to handle any work related to communication by the microprocessor 100 of the main system.

5 is a schematic diagram of the parallel design process of the man-machine operation interface system with the device control bridge according to the present invention, which is changed from the single-line design process adopted in the past to the parallel design mode. According to this parallel design process, the screen components have no direct relationship with the destination device, so the screen designer can only plan each component in sequence according to the control number of the component list provided by the system analyst, and the screen editing program will compile and generate Export the screen file. On the other hand, when actually setting the location of the destination device, another designer can connect the communication protocol of the destination device according to the planning table of the corresponding address, and generate the execution program code and device control bridge 60 through software. Address conversion table (Device address Transfer Table). The screen file can be connected with the execution program code and the device address conversion table of the device control bridge 60 at the same time, and then downloaded to the man-machine interface together, and then sent to the device control bridge 60 by the man-machine interface program for execution. Or download the screen file and the execution program code and the device address conversion table of the device control bridge 60 to the man-machine interface and the device control bridge 60 respectively, so that the same purpose can also be achieved.

Fig. 6 is the flow chart of the parallel design process of the man-machine operation interface system with the device control bridge of the present invention, comprising the following steps: after starting (step S200), it is judged whether to edit the picture (step S210), if so, then Select a screen component (step S240) and set component properties (step S242), and set the address of the component corresponding to the access device control bridge 60 (step S244). Then judge whether to finish all components (step S244), if not, then get back to step S240, if so, then produce picture file (step S248) and judge whether to carry out modification operation (step S250).

In step S210, if the screen is not to be edited, the following steps are performed to modify the device address translation table. Edit the device address corresponding to the internal access address of the device control bridge (step S220), connect the device communication protocol driver (step S222), and generate the execution program code of the device control bridge (step S224). Step S226 judges whether to modify the operation, if it is to be performed, the execution program code of the device control bridge is downloaded to the device control bridge 60, if otherwise the screen file and the execution code of the device control bridge are merged (step S228), and the merged result Download to the man-machine interface (step S232). In the above step of judging whether to modify the operation (step S250), if so, proceed to step S232 to download the merged result to the man-machine interface, if otherwise, proceed to step S228 to merge the screen file and device control bridge execution code, and finally complete (step S260) .

7A to 7C are device address translation tables of the present invention. The picture file records the attribute, data type and direct access address of the corresponding device control bridge 60 of each component, rather than pointing to any device address of the destination device. The device control bridge 60 uses the device address translation table to find the address that maps the destination device end to the internal memory of the device control bridge 60 .

Fig. 8 is the processing flow of the man-machine interface screen component, which includes the following steps: after the new page starts (step S300), it enters the initial screen state (step S302), and exchanges cached data with the device control bridge (step S304), Store the exchange data into the internal temporary storage area of the man-machine interface (step S306), and process the state transition of the screen components (step S308), check whether all the components of the screen have been completed (step S310), if not, draw the component state diagram (step S312), if so, start the timer (step S314). After waiting for the user to input (step S316), judge whether to change the component state (step S318), if so then return to step S304, if otherwise judge whether to change pages (step S322), if not to change pages, then return to step S320 , if it is necessary to change the page, the flow process is ended (step S330).

In summary, the present invention has the following advantages:

1. The man-machine interface product designed using the framework of the present invention can be quickly modified to meet the requirements of the market.

2. It can improve the performance of man-machine interface products in processing graphics and communication at the same time.

3. There is no need to choose an expensive high-end processor to improve system performance.

4. When designing the screen of the man-machine interface, there is no need to consider the controller device.

5. The screen design of the man-machine interface is disassembled into two parallel design steps, so that there is no direct data dependence on each other. Increased the portability and reuse value of the design screen.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the patent scope of the present invention. All other equivalent changes or modifications made within the scope of the characteristics of the present invention shall be included in the patent scope of the present invention.

Claims (8)

1. A method for designing a human-machine interface system with a device control bridge, the human-machine interface system comprising: a main system having a first microprocessor; The device control bridge has a second microprocessor and is connected to the main system and the device respectively, and the design method includes the following steps: a. Design screen components; b. Design the device address translation table in a parallel manner; c. Merge the screen component and the device address translation table. 2. The method for designing a human-machine interface system with a device control bridge as claimed in claim 1, wherein the screen component and the device address translation table are merged by merging software. 3. The man-machine interface system design method with device control bridge as claimed in claim 1, wherein said design device address conversion table step also includes: Edit the device end address corresponding to the internal access address of the device control bridge; Connected device communication protocol drivers; and An executable program code of the device control bridge is generated. 4. A method of operating a human-machine interface system with a device control bridge, the human-machine interface system comprising: a main system having a first microprocessor; The device control bridge has a second microprocessor and is connected to the main system and the device respectively, and the operation method includes the following steps: The main system stores the program code and communication protocol translation table required by the device control bridge into the internal memory of the device control bridge; the device control bridge writes a state of a device-side device into the internal memory; and The host system reads the internal memory to obtain the state of the device. 5. The operating method of the human-machine interface system with the device control bridge as claimed in claim 4, wherein the host system notifies the device control bridge to start operation through the control of the GPIO. 6. The operating method of the man-machine interface system with the device control bridge as claimed in claim 4, wherein the device control bridge will write the state of the device end into the internal memory after completing a communication cycle by itself . 7. The operating method of the man-machine interface system with the device control bridge as claimed in claim 6, wherein the device control bridge notifies the main system by means of an interrupt. 8. The operating method of a human-machine interface system with a device control bridge as claimed in claim 6, wherein said internal memory is a dual-port RAM.

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