JP2010282264A - Application inspection device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To execute an application testing device for efficiently make the various tests of an application in a controller without performing the function changing operation of a shadow block in the controller. <P>SOLUTION: An application inspection device inspects an application by a simulation PC in a pseudo state with respect to a control system on which a plurality of field bus blocks for mapping a plurality of field bus blocks installed in field equipment, and an application for referring to the data of the shadow blocks are mounted, wherein the simulation PC is provided with: the application as the object of inspection downloaded from a host device; a plurality of pseudo blocks formed corresponding to the plurality of shadow blocks in the controller for referring to or setting the application as the object of inspection; and an input simulation processing part for executing the process input wiring processing of those pseudo blocks and the simulated input processing of each block. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  In the present invention, a plurality of shadow blocks that map a plurality of field bus blocks provided in the field device and an application that can refer to the data of the shadow block are mounted in a controller that controls the field device compliant with the field bus standard. The present invention relates to an application inspection apparatus for inspecting the control system by a simulation PC.

  In recent years, in plant instrumentation systems, the number of cases in which plants are controlled by using field devices compliant with a field bus standard (for example, a foundation field bus) is increasing due to the advancement of field networks.

  The present invention provides an application inspection apparatus that can efficiently inspect an application that uses data of a shadow block formed in a controller by mapping a fieldbus block block included in a field device. Patent Document 1 discloses an inspection simulation using a shadow block.

  FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration example of a fieldbus system having a shadow block in the controller. The controller 20 connected to the control bus 10 communicates with host devices such as the operation / monitoring device 30 and the engineering station 40 via the control bus, and also via the field bus 50 connected via the I / O interface 25. The field device 60 conforming to the fieldbus standard is controlled.

  The field device 60 acquires, as a fieldbus block, a control calculation block 61 that performs PID calculation, an input block 62 that inputs an analog signal from the sensor 70 and passes the analog signal to the control calculation block 61, and an analog calculation output of the control calculation block 61 Thus, an output block 63 that is passed to the operation means 80 is provided.

  In the controller 20, a control calculation shadow block 21, an input shadow block 22, and an output shadow block 23 for mapping the control calculation block 61, the input block 62, and the output block 63 of the field device 60 are formed.

  The field device 60 has a control algorithm inside, and the controller 20 takes in the data inside the field device and stores them in these shadow blocks. That is, these shadow blocks function as dedicated blocks for mapping the calculation results in the field device onto the controller 20.

  As a result, data is displayed on the operation / monitoring device 30 that is a man-machine interface via the tag name, or another application 24 installed in the controller 20 refers to the shadow block, so that the field device 60 By referring to internal data, inspection such as debugging can be performed.

JP 2004-29910 A

The configuration of the conventional fieldbus control system has the following problems.
(1) The operation test of the application logic that operates in the field device 60 can only be performed by actually connecting the field device, but the other application 24 in the controller 20 has a simulator environment (on the PC) that does not connect the actual device. In general, the validity of the algorithm is confirmed in the simulated operation environment in (1).

  However, in a simulator environment where a real machine is not connected, the input data of the shadow block cannot be acquired, so it is not possible to check the operation including other applications that refer to it.

(2) FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration example in which a shadow block in the controller 20 is virtually connected and changed to a simulator for the provisional field device 60 in order to avoid this situation.

  Since the shadow blocks 21, 22, and 23 do not have information indicating data relevance, these shadow blocks are controlled by an operator operation from the engineering station 40, and the control calculation block 21 ', the input block 22', and the output block 23 '. The function is changed, and the soft connection between the blocks and the process input wiring process are performed to construct a control loop environment of a virtual field device.

  In such a simulator mode, another application 24 can execute a test referring to the data of each block. After completion of the test, a complicated mode change / cancellation operation is required to return the simulator environment to the original controller environment by an operator operation from the engineering station 40 again.

  An object of the present invention is to realize an application test apparatus that can efficiently carry out various tests of applications in the controller without complicated function changing operation of the shadow block in the controller.

In order to achieve such a subject, the present invention has the following configuration.
(1) A plurality of shadow blocks that map a plurality of field bus blocks provided in the field device and an application that can refer to the data of the shadow block are implemented in a controller that controls a field device compliant with the field bus standard. In an application inspection apparatus that inspects the application with a simulation PC for a control system,
The simulation PC is
The application to be inspected downloaded from the host device;
A plurality of simulated blocks formed corresponding to a plurality of shadow blocks in the controller, which can be referred to or set by the application to be inspected;
An input simulation processing unit for executing the process input wiring process of these simulated blocks and the simulated input process of each block;
An application inspection apparatus comprising:

(2) The application inspection apparatus according to (1), wherein the simulation PC includes a process input wiring information file and a block simulation input information file referred to by the input simulation processing unit.

(3) The application inspection apparatus according to (1) or (2), wherein the process input wiring information file and the block simulation input information file are maintained by a user.

(4) The application inspection apparatus according to any one of (1) to (3), wherein the plurality of simulation blocks are at least one of a control calculation simulation block, an input simulation block, and an output simulation block.

(5) The application inspection apparatus according to any one of (1) to (4), wherein the inspection target application is generated and downloaded by a host apparatus communicating with the simulation PC.

(6) A user PC communicating with the simulation PC is provided, and the process input wiring information file and the block simulation input information file are maintained by the user PC. Application inspection device of description.

(7) The application inspection apparatus according to any one of (1) to (6), wherein the fieldbus standard is a foundation fieldbus.

According to the present invention, the following effects can be expected.
(1) It is possible to perform operation tests of other related applications installed in the controller on a separate PC without changing any of the functions in the controller constituting the fieldbus system. Improved.

(2) The process input wiring information and the block simulation input information of the simulation block formed in the simulation PC can be connected to various blocks by processing based on the description of the table that can be maintained by the user. The scope and quality of the inspection can be improved.

It is a functional block diagram which shows one Example of the application test | inspection apparatus to which this invention is applied. It is a table | surface which shows the example of a description of a block simulation input information file. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence of an input simulation process part. It is a functional block diagram which shows the application example to the plant simulator of the application inspection apparatus to which this invention is applied. It is a functional block diagram which shows the structural example of the fieldbus system which has a shadow block in a controller. It is a functional block diagram showing a configuration example in which a shadow block in a controller is virtually connected and changed to a temporary field device simulator.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of an application inspection apparatus to which the present invention is applied. The same elements as those of the conventional configuration described with reference to FIG.

  The application inspection apparatus of the present invention is executed by a simulation PC 100 that can communicate with the engineering station 40 via the control bus 10. The same inspection target application 204 as the other application 24 in the controller 20 shown in FIG. 5 is downloaded from the engineering station 40.

  A control calculation simulation block 201, an input simulation block 202, and an output simulation block 202 corresponding to the control calculation shadow block 21, the input shadow block 22, and the output shadow block 23 in the controller 20 shown in FIG.

  Unlike the shadow block mapping function, these simulated blocks have a soft connection function between blocks and can be configured as a virtual control loop, simulating the function of the control loop by the fieldbus block operating on the field device. Designed to be able to let you.

  The input simulation processing unit 105 is a program that executes input connection between these simulation blocks, and executes a wiring process of process input from the output simulation block 103 to the input simulation block 102 and a simulation input process to each simulation block. .

  The input simulation processing unit 105 refers to the description of the process input wiring information file 106 and executes process input wiring processing. Similarly, referring to the description of the block simulation input information file 107, simulation input processing to each simulation block is executed. The description contents of these files can be maintained from the user PC 90 on the control bus 10.

  FIG. 2 is a table showing a description example of the block simulation input information file 107. It has a table form in which reference source information having a block tag name and a data item name is paired with location information of data of an arithmetic expression or a reference block.

  The user can freely define on this table where each block's data gets its input value. It is possible to specify a block tag name and data item name as reference source information, and specify a tag name and data item name of another block as reference destination information, or define an arithmetic expression. When it is desired to fix the input value, constant data can be given as the input value.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the input simulation processing unit 105. FIG. 3A shows a basic flow, and the input simulation process is started in step S1. In step S2, a wiring process related to the input definition is executed with reference to the process input wiring information file 106. In step S3, a block input data simulation input process is executed with reference to the block simulation input information file 107, and the input simulation process is terminated in step S4.

  FIG. 3B shows a detailed flow of step S3. When the block simulation input process is started in step S31, the completion of the processing of all definition information is checked in step S32. If not completed, the process is referred to in step S33. It is checked whether the destination information is operation data or functional block data. If it is operation data, operation processing is executed in step S34 to obtain a set value, and in step S35, the set value is stored in the reference source and the process returns to step 32.

  If it is determined in step 33 that the reference destination information is function block data, the value of the reference destination block is set as a set value in step S36, the process proceeds to step 35, the set value is stored in the reference source, and the process returns to step 32. If it is determined in step S32 that all the definition information has been processed, the block simulation input process is terminated in step S37.

  FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram showing an application example of the application inspection apparatus to which the present invention is applied to a plant simulator. An object of the present invention is to improve the efficiency of application inspection. By combining the simulation PC 100 with a plant simulator 300 that simulates the behavior of the plant itself, a plant operation training system that simulates a controller that controls field devices is constructed. It becomes possible to do.

10 Control bus 40 Engineering station 90 User PC
100 simulation PC
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Control calculation simulation block 102 Input simulation block 103 Output simulation block 104 Inspection object application 105 Input simulation processing part 106 Process input wiring information file 107 Block simulation input information file

Claims (7)

In a controller that controls a field device compliant with the field bus standard, a control system in which a plurality of shadow blocks that map a plurality of field bus blocks provided in the field device and an application that can refer to the data of the shadow block is installed. On the other hand, in an application inspection apparatus for inspecting the application by a simulation PC,
The simulation PC is
The application to be inspected downloaded from the host device;
A plurality of simulated blocks formed corresponding to a plurality of shadow blocks in the controller, which can be referred to or set by the application to be inspected;
An input simulation processing unit for executing the process input wiring process of these simulated blocks and the simulated input process of each block;
An application inspection apparatus comprising:   The application inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the simulation PC includes a process input wiring information file and a block simulation input information file that are referred to by the input simulation processing unit.   The application inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the process input wiring information file and the block simulation input information file are maintained by a user.   The application inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of simulation blocks are at least one of a control calculation simulation block, an input simulation block, and an output simulation block.   The application inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the inspection target application is generated and downloaded by a host apparatus communicating with the simulation PC.   6. The application inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a user PC that communicates with the simulation PC, wherein the process input wiring information file and the block simulation input information file are maintained by the user PC. .   The application inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fieldbus standard is a foundation fieldbus.

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