JP2008033913A - Program development support apparatus for plc - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a program development support apparatus capable of simply and quickly performing operation for converting a part of an existing ladder program into an FB program. <P>SOLUTION: The program development support apparatus comprises an area selection means for optionally selecting an area in an existing ladder program which is required to be converted into an FB program, a guide picture display means for displaying a variable definition guide picture necessary for converting the ladder program of the area optionally selected by the area selection means into the FB program, and an FB program generation means for generating the FB program on the basis of the contents of respective variables defined through operation to be executed according to the guide picture displayed by the guide picture display means. On the guide picture displayed by the guide picture display means, the variable sorts of respective variables are previously defined by variable sort information found out through automatic judgment processing based on the operands of respective instructions included in the ladder program of the selected area and known information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a program development support apparatus for a programmable controller (hereinafter referred to as PLC) having a function of executing a ladder program including a function block (hereinafter referred to as FB) program.

  As the necessity of improving reusability by increasing the spread of IEC1131 and program componentization, the number of cases where PLC programs using FBs are created has increased (see Patent Document 1). As one flow, there is a case where a part of an existing ladder program is replaced with an FB program using a program development support apparatus.

  The operation procedure of the program development support apparatus in such a case is shown in FIGS. 10 is a diagram showing a screen display example of a user program created in a ladder language, FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a screen display example of a user program including a selected program area, and FIG. 12 is a diagram for generating an FB program. It is explanatory drawing of the conventional guidance screen.

  As shown in FIG. 10, a user program (hereinafter referred to as a ladder program) created in a ladder language is displayed on the screen of a computer (for example, a personal computer) constituting the program development support apparatus. Assuming that

  At this time, when a region to be converted into the FB program in the ladder program is selected by a so-called mouse drag operation, the selected region a is displayed in a different color from the other regions as shown in FIG. It becomes.

  Thereafter, when the selected ladder program is pasted on the guidance screen for generating the FB program as shown in FIG. 12B, another screen of the same screen is displayed as shown in FIG. A variable definition table is displayed in the area.

  This variable definition table has five page screens that can be selected by using five tabs TB1 to TB5. These page screens are a page defining internal variables (Internals) corresponding to the tab TB1, a page defining input variables (Inputs) corresponding to the tab TB2, and a page defining output variables (Outputs) corresponding to the tab TB3. , A page defining an input / output variable (In Out) corresponding to the tab TB4, and a page defining an external variable (Externals) corresponding to the tab TB5.

  Here, each variable will be briefly described. An input variable is a variable that is used as an operand for input purposes in an area that is to be converted to an FB program in a ladder program and that is used outside the area in the FB program. It is a type of.

  An output variable is a variable that is used as an operand for output within an area that is to be converted to an FB program in a ladder program and that is used outside the area in the FB program. It is a type of.

  An input / output variable is a variable that is used as an operand for both input and output in an area to be converted to an FB program in a ladder program, and a variable that is also used outside the area is an FB program. This is the type of variable when handled in the.

  The internal variable is a type of variable when a variable used only in an area to be converted into an FB program in the ladder program is handled in the FB program.

  The variables described above are used as operands of instructions included in the program using labels called variable names.

  As is clear from FIG. 12A, the variable names used for the operands of all the instructions included in the selected area (in the case of a ladder program, contacts, coils, various application instructions, etc.) Temporarily set as an internal variable. That is, as shown in FIG. 12A, all variable names are displayed together on the internal variable page corresponding to the tab TB1.

  On the other hand, on the program development support device side, only when the variable names used for the operands of all instructions in the selected area are appropriately defined as internal variables, input variables, output variables, and input / output variables. The FB program corresponding to the selected ladder program is normally generated.

  Therefore, after that, the operator performs operations such as assigning to the appropriate variable type and posting to the corresponding type page while checking all the variable names initially displayed on the page defining the internal variable one by one. I have to. As the number of instructions existing in the selected area increases, the above-described allocation or transcription work becomes extremely complicated and results in a great deal of time and effort.

For example, to check whether a variable name used for an operand of a specific instruction is an internal variable or an external variable, check whether the variable name exists in a region other than the selected region I have to do it. This takes a lot of time and effort.
JP 2004-280341 A

  As is clear from the above example, in order to convert a part of an existing ladder program into an FB program in the conventional program development support apparatus, the ladder program created on the basis of an address is changed to a variable-based FB program. (1) It is necessary to define the variable name of the address used for each instruction operand. (2) Use of the address used for each instruction operand (input, output, input / output, etc.) ) Is required to be very complicated.

  The present invention has been made paying attention to such a conventional problem, and its object is to easily and quickly perform an operation for converting a part of an existing ladder program into an FB program. An object of the present invention is to provide a program development support apparatus that can be performed.

  Other objects and operational effects of the present invention will be easily understood by those skilled in the art by referring to the following description of the specification.

  As means for solving the above-mentioned problems, the following configuration can be adopted. That is, this program development support apparatus is a PLC program development support apparatus having a function of executing a ladder program including an FB program. In this program development support apparatus, an area selection means for arbitrarily selecting an area to be converted into an FB program in an existing ladder program, and a ladder program in an area arbitrarily selected by the area selection means are converted into an FB program. An FB program is generated on the basis of the contents of each variable defined through a guide screen display means for displaying a guide screen for defining variables necessary for the operation and an operation according to the guide screen displayed by the guide screen display means. FB program generation means is provided. In addition, in this program development support device, the guidance screen displayed by the guidance screen display means is automatically based on the operands of each instruction included in the ladder program of the selected area and the known information. The variable type of each variable is defined in advance based on the variable type information obtained through the determination process.

  According to such a configuration, in the variable definition necessary for generating the FB program, the type of each variable (for example, internal variable, input variable, output variable, input / output variable, external variable, etc.) is automatically set to an appropriate content. Thus, the operator can be freed from complicated operations for defining variable types. Moreover, the variable type information used for defining the variable type of each variable was obtained through an automatic determination process based on the operands of each instruction included in the ladder program of the selected area and known information. Therefore, there is an advantage that it is very reliable.

  At this time, according to the automatic determination process based on the operand of each instruction included in the ladder program of the selected area and the known information, not only the variable type information but also the data type information of each variable can be obtained. Therefore, if the data type of each variable is already defined, the labor of the operator can be further reduced.

  In such variable type information automatic definition processing, an automatically generated variable name may be assigned to an operand address not assigned a variable name. According to such a configuration, the ladder program Even if there is no variable name in the field, the variable type and the data type of the variable can be automatically defined on the assumption of the automatically generated variable name. Here, the operand address is an address used for the operand of the instruction. A variable name or address is used as an operand of each instruction included in an existing program including an area to be converted into an FB program.

  In the above configuration, as the “known information” used for the automatic determination process, information indicating the relationship between the operand of each instruction and its use can be used. Generally, in this type of program development support apparatus, Such information is usually prepared as a cross-reference list.

  According to the program development support apparatus of the present invention, an operation for generating an FB program using a part of an existing ladder program can be remarkably simplified.

  Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of a program development support apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is an external configuration diagram showing an example of a PLC system including a program development support apparatus according to the present invention. As shown in the figure, the PLC system is configured by connecting a PLC 1 and a program development support apparatus 2 via a communication cable 5. In this example, the PLC 1 is configured as a building block type having a backplane 3. More specifically, the PLC 1 includes a power supply unit 10, a CPU unit 12, an I / O unit 13, and a special function unit 14. In this example, the CPU unit 12 constituting the PLC 1 has a function of executing a ladder program including an FB program.

  On the other hand, the program development support apparatus 2 is configured by installing an application program as a program development support apparatus in a general-purpose computer such as a personal computer.

  As will be described in detail later, this application program includes an area selection means for arbitrarily selecting an area to be replaced with an FB program in an existing ladder program, and a ladder of an area arbitrarily selected by the area selection means. The guide screen display means for displaying a guide screen for defining variables necessary for replacing the program with the FB program, and the contents of each variable name defined through the operation according to the guide screen displayed by the guide screen display means A program as FB program generation means for generating an FB program based on the program is included.

  In addition, in the guidance screen displayed by the guidance screen display means, the variable type obtained through the automatic determination process based on the operand of each instruction and the known information included in the ladder program of the selected area The program is configured so that the variable type of each variable is defined in advance by the information.

  Next, an operation for converting a part of an existing ladder program into an FB program in the program development support apparatus according to the present invention will be described.

  After selecting a ladder program portion to be converted into an FB program on the screen of a personal computer constituting the program development support apparatus 2 (see FIG. 10 and FIG. 11), as shown in FIG. 4B, FB program generation support When the selected ladder program part is pasted on the predetermined area on the guidance screen for the variable name included in the selected area is stored in the variable definition table, as shown in FIG. Also displayed on the screen.

  Here, as is clear from comparison between the variable definition table shown in FIG. 4A and the variable definition table shown in FIG. 12A, in the present invention, the variable definition table is included in the selected program area. The variable name used for each instruction is assigned to an appropriate variable type, stored in the variable definition table, and displayed on the screen.

  In the example of FIG. 4A, since the page defining the internal variable corresponding to the tab TB1 is in an open state, the description content cannot be seen for the other pages, but FIG. ) To (c), the variable name is appropriately allocated and stored in each of the page defining the input variable, the page defining the output variable, and the page defining the input / output variable, Also displayed on the screen.

  Thus, according to the program development support apparatus of the present invention, in the state where the existing ladder program is displayed, a drag operation for selecting an area is performed using the mouse, and this is used as a guide for supporting the FB program generation. When pasting at a predetermined position on the screen, the variable type automatic allocation work is immediately executed, and the variable names are stored in the variable definition table of the corresponding type and displayed on the screen.

  Moreover, looking at the page that defines each variable type, the attributes of each variable type include data type (Data Type), current value (AT), initial value (Initial Val ...), presence / absence of retention (Retain ...). .)), The data type and initial value are defined in the same way.

  Therefore, according to the program development support apparatus of the present invention, as an operation for converting a part of an existing ladder program into an FB program, in addition to a drag operation, necessary values for a few attribute items are described. In particular, since the allocation of variable types has already been defined, it is no longer necessary to check the entire program to check the variable types as before. The operation can be greatly simplified. The concept of variable type allocation is shown in FIG.

  Next, in order to realize the above operation, the configuration of the application program installed in the personal computer will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS.

  A flowchart showing the variable allocation process of the operand is shown in FIG. When the process is started in the figure, first, in step 601, a circuit to be converted into an FB is selected through a mouse drag operation. In the subsequent step 602, predetermined preprocessing (such as initial setting of flags and registers) for starting the function to be converted to FB is executed. In the subsequent step 603, processing for creating a new FB is performed. By this processing, an FB program creation area in the memory is defined, and a variable definition table for registering FB variables (variables used in the FB program) is created here, and is subsequently registered.

  In subsequent step 604, one instruction in the selection circuit is acquired from the ladder program (step 604). In the subsequent step 605, instruction data corresponding to the acquired one instruction is acquired from the instruction specification database (DB), and the structure of the one instruction is analyzed. In the subsequent step 606, the data type of the operand is acquired from the operand data in the instruction specification DB. In this way, through steps 604 to 606, the contents of one instruction acquired from the selected area in the ladder program are analyzed.

  Thereafter, it is checked whether or not there is a variable name as an operand of the acquired instruction (step 607). If it is determined that there is no variable name (in this case, an address is used instead of a variable name as an operand), the process proceeds to step 608, and automatic variable name generation processing is performed. In this variable name automatic generation processing, as shown in FIG. 2, an automatically generated variable name such as “AutoGen _” + address ”is attached to the address from“ unnamed variable ”to“ address ”. It becomes. If there is a variable name in step 607, step 608 is skipped.

  In the subsequent step 609, an operand is acquired from the ladder program. In the subsequent step 610, based on the acquired operand, the usage of the operand is confirmed. As a result, the usage (input, output, input / output, etc.) of the acquired operand is confirmed, and based on this, variable type information is generated. The details of the operand use confirmation process (step 610) will be described later in detail with reference to FIG.

  In the subsequent step 611, based on the information obtained by the above processing, the FB variable is generated and stored in the corresponding storage area in the memory (area in which the variable definition table is stored).

  The processes in steps 604 to 611 described above are repeatedly executed until the last instruction in the selected ladder circuit is reached (step 612).

  Next, FIG. 7 shows a flowchart showing the usage confirmation process of the operand. When the processing is started in the figure, first, in step 701, one instruction in the entire program is acquired from the ladder program. In the subsequent step 702, similarly, the operand of the instruction is acquired from the ladder program. Thereafter, the above-described one instruction acquisition and operand acquisition process is repeatedly executed until a match between the operand acquired in this way and the operand acquired in step 609 in FIG. 6 is confirmed (steps 701 and 702).

  In the meantime, if a match between the operand of one instruction in the entire program and the operand of the instruction in the selection circuit is confirmed (YES in step 703), then step 704 is executed, and the usage of the instruction operand (input / output / input) Output) is obtained based on the instruction data. This instruction data is acquired from the instruction specification database DB. In the subsequent step 705, it is determined whether or not one instruction acquired in step 701 is an instruction in the selected range. If the command is a selection range command, the process proceeds to step 706. If the command is not a selection range command, the process proceeds to step 707.

  In step 706, when the usage is input, the in-selection range input flag is turned ON. When the usage is output, the output flag within the selection range is set to ON. Further, when the application is input / output, the input flag within the selection range is turned ON and the output flag within the selection range is also turned ON.

  On the other hand, in step 707, when the usage is input, the out-of-selection range input flag is turned ON. When the usage is output, the output flag outside the selection range is set to ON. When the usage is input / output, the out-of-selection-area input flag is turned on and the out-of-selection-area output flag is also turned on.

  The above processing steps 701 to 707 are repeated until the last instruction of the entire program is reached, and the use determination process is executed based on the table of FIG. 8 after waiting for the last instruction of the entire program to arrive ( Step 709).

  In this use determination process (step 709), internal variables, input variables, output variables, and input / output variables are separately allocated outside or outside the selection circuit according to the reference table shown in FIG.

  Next, FIG. 9 shows a flowchart showing a process for generating a variable in the FB corresponding to step 611 in FIG. As shown in the figure, when the process is started, a new FB variable generation process (step 901), the acquired operand data type is registered in the FB variable (step 902), and the variable name is converted into the FB variable. A process of registering (step 903) and a process of registering the determined use in the FB variable (step 904) are executed, and as a result, a new FB variable is generated or defined. Here, registering in the FB variable means registering in the variable definition table.

  As described above, the operator can execute a ladder program by executing the operand variable assignment process shown in FIG. 6, the operand use confirmation process shown in FIG. 7, and the FB variable generation process shown in FIG. By selecting an arbitrary program area from the whole and pasting it on the guidance screen for generating the FB program, variables corresponding to each command included in the selected area can be automatically defined. This makes it possible to remarkably simplify this type of FB conversion operation as compared with a command type confirmation operation that relies on a conventional manual operation.

  According to the present invention, an operation for generating an FB program using a part of an existing ladder program can be remarkably simplified.

It is an external appearance block diagram which shows an example of the PLC system containing the development assistance apparatus which concerns on this invention. It is operation | movement explanatory drawing of this invention apparatus. It is a figure which shows the concept of allocation of a variable classification. It is explanatory drawing (the 1) of the guidance screen for FB program generation assistance. It is explanatory drawing (the 2) of the guidance screen for FB program generation assistance. It is a flowchart which shows the variable allocation process of an operand. It is a flowchart which shows the usage confirmation process of an operand. It is explanatory drawing of the reference table for a use determination. It is a flowchart which shows the production | generation process of the variable in FB. It is a figure which shows the example of a screen display of the user program produced with the ladder language. It is a figure which shows the example of a screen display of the user program containing the selected program area | region. It is explanatory drawing of the conventional guidance screen for FB program production | generation.

Explanation of symbols

1 PLC
2 Program development support device a Selection area TB1-TB5 Tab

Claims (4)

A PLC program development support apparatus having a function of executing a ladder program including an FB program,
An area selection means for arbitrarily selecting an area to be converted into an FB program in an existing ladder program;
Guidance screen display means for displaying a guidance screen for variable definition necessary for converting a ladder program of an area arbitrarily selected by the area selection means into an FB program;
FB program generating means for generating an FB program based on the contents of each variable defined through an operation according to the guide screen displayed by the guide screen display means, and displayed on the guide screen display means In the guidance screen, the variable type of each variable has been defined in advance based on the variable type information obtained through the automatic determination process based on the operand of each instruction included in the ladder program of the selected area and the known information. It is said that
A program development support apparatus for PLC.   2. The PLC program development support apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data type of each variable is already defined in addition to the variable type of each variable.   3. The PLC program development support apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an automatically generated variable name is assigned to an operand address not assigned a variable name.   4. The PLC program development support apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the known information is information indicating a relationship between an operand of each instruction and its use.

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