JP2011065436A - Program preparation support apparatus and method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a program preparation support apparatus and method which prompt a programmer to prepare a control program without requiring the programmer to recognize actually existing input/output signals to a plant device being a control object of a programmable controller. <P>SOLUTION: The program preparation support apparatus includes: a virtual signal obtaining part 10 which obtains a virtual input/output signal included in the control program; an actual signal obtaining part 20 which obtains a plurality of actual input/output signals corresponding to a plurality of plant devices respectively with respect to actual input/output signals being input/output signals for controlling the plant devices; a matching part 30 which verifies consistency between the plurality of virtual input/output signals and the plurality of actual input/output signals; a correction part 40 which, when inconsistency occurs between virtual input/output signals and the actual input/output signals, corrects the virtual input/output signals so that they are consistent; a detection part 50 which detects consistency information showing a correspondence relationship between the virtual input/output signals and the actual input/output signals after the consistency between the virtual input/output signals and the actual input/output signals is established; and a conversion part 60 which converts the virtual input/output signals included in the control program to actual input signals on the basis of consistency information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a program creation support apparatus and method for a control program mounted on a programmable controller.

  Conventionally, in a plant engineering business, a programmable controller is used to control plant equipment arranged in a plant. Based on an operator instruction, an operation command signal for the plant equipment is input to the programmable controller as an input signal. A control signal for controlling the plant equipment is output to the plant equipment as an output signal from the programmable controller. The input signal and the output signal are allocated as allocation information to an input / output card mounted on the programmable controller. The allocation information is described in a document called a development connection diagram. Signals input / output between the programmable controller and the plant equipment through a transmission line such as a network are described in a document such as a transmission list. These documents also include address information of plant equipment assigned according to a predetermined rule so that the programmable controller can recognize these signals, together with signal comments indicating the use of each signal. The signal comments and address information of the input / output signals depend on the type of plant equipment that constitutes the control target plant, the arrangement of the plant equipment in the plant, the products produced by the plant, and the difference between the programmable controllers that control the plant equipment. Different for each. Therefore, a programmer who creates a control program to be mounted on a programmable controller grasps signal comments and address information of input / output signals used in the control program by referring to documents such as an expanded connection diagram and a transmission list. You need to create a control program.

  As described above, the creation of the control program requires a high level of skill from the programmer, and thus includes bugs such as a grammatical error and the fact that the device does not operate according to the target specification. When there are many plant devices to be controlled, the size of the control program becomes enormous and it is very difficult to modify the program.

  Thus, a debugging tool for a programmable controller has been proposed that outputs the control program execution status and execution result as necessary, and makes it easy to identify a location where a program bug exists (see, for example, Patent Document 1). However, when a complicated correction is required, a huge time burden is imposed on the correction work. In a large-scale plant, since the amount of control programs to be created increases, a plurality of programmers share the creation work. In this case, there is a problem that it is necessary to preliminarily define the input / output signals of the programmable controller in each of the plurality of control programs. In addition, when diverting a control program created in the past when creating a new control program, the diversion source control program sets the signal comments and address information of the input / output signals used in the diversion source control program as control targets. Therefore, the programmer must manually replace the signal comment and address information of the diversion source control program with the signal comment and address information of the plant equipment to be controlled by the new control program. There is also the problem of having to. Still further, in the signal comment included in the control program and given to the input / output signal in order to clearly indicate the use of the signal, the name of the plant equipment arranged in the plant is described. The names of plant equipment are often different for each plant depending on the habits of the operator. For maintenance of the control program, there is also a problem that the control program must be created using the name of the plant equipment applied in the plant where the plant equipment to be controlled by the programmable controller is arranged.

JP-A-8-83108

  In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a program creation support apparatus and method that prompts creation of a control program without recognizing an actual input / output signal for a plant device to be controlled by a programmable controller. .

  In order to achieve the above object, a first aspect of the present invention relates to a program creation support apparatus that supports creation of a program for controlling plant equipment. That is, the program creation support device includes a virtual signal acquisition unit that acquires a virtual signal that controls the plant equipment, a real signal acquisition unit that acquires a real signal that normally controls the plant equipment, a virtual signal and an actual When the matching unit for verifying the consistency of the signal and the virtual signal and the real signal are mismatched, the virtual signal is corrected to match the real signal, and the program is corrected to correspond to the corrected virtual signal. The gist is to include a correction unit, a detection unit that detects matching information indicating correspondence between the virtual signal and the real signal, and a conversion unit that replaces the virtual signal of the program with the real signal based on the matching information.

  Moreover, the 2nd aspect of this invention is related with the program creation assistance apparatus which debugs the control program mounted in the programmable controller which controls plant equipment. That is, the program creation support apparatus includes a virtual signal acquisition unit that acquires a plurality of virtual input / output signals in a virtual input / output signal that is an input / output signal that controls a virtually assumed plant device included in the control program, and a plant In the actual input / output signal that is the input / output signal that controls the equipment, the actual signal acquisition unit that acquires the plurality of actual input / output signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of plant equipment, the plurality of virtual input / output signals and the plurality of actual inputs When a mismatch occurs between the matching unit that verifies the consistency with the output signal and the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal, the virtual input / output signal is corrected so that it matches, and the corrected virtual input / output The correction unit that corrects the control program to correspond to the signal, and the matching information indicating the correspondence between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal after the matching between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal is completed. The A detection unit for output, based on the consistency information, and summarized in that and a converter for converting the virtual output signal control program contains the actual input signal.

  Next, a third aspect of the present invention relates to a program creation support method for supporting creation of a program for controlling plant equipment. That is, in the program creation support method, the virtual signal acquisition unit acquires a virtual signal that controls the plant equipment included in the program, and the real signal acquisition unit acquires a real signal that normally controls the plant equipment. The matching unit verifies the consistency between the virtual signal and the real signal, and the correction unit corrects the virtual signal to match the real signal when the virtual signal and the real signal are mismatched, The step of correcting the program so as to correspond to the corrected virtual signal, the detecting unit detecting the matching information indicating the correspondence between the virtual signal and the real signal, and the converting unit, based on the matching information, And replacing the signal with a real signal.

  Furthermore, a fourth aspect of the present invention relates to a program creation support method for debugging a control program mounted on a programmable controller that controls plant equipment. That is, in the program creation support method, the virtual signal acquisition unit acquires a plurality of virtual input / output signals in a virtual input / output signal that is an input / output signal for controlling a virtually assumed plant device included in the control program. And the real signal acquisition unit acquires a plurality of actual input / output signals respectively corresponding to a plurality of plant devices in the actual input / output signal that is an input / output signal for controlling the plant devices, and the matching unit includes a plurality of The step of verifying the consistency between the virtual input / output signal and the plurality of actual input / output signals, and the correction unit are configured to match the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal so that they match when a mismatch occurs. The step of correcting the input / output signal, correcting the control program so as to correspond to the corrected virtual input / output signal, and the detecting unit after the matching between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal is completed, Detecting the matching information indicating the correspondence between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal, and converting the virtual input / output signal included in the control program into the actual input signal based on the matching information. It is made to include.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the program creation assistance apparatus and method which accelerate | urge | promote creation of a control program can be provided, without recognizing the actual input / output signal with respect to the plant apparatus which a programmable controller controls.

It is a block diagram of the program creation assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a program creation support apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a control program by the virtual input / output signal which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is the matching information before correction of the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is the matching information after correction of the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is the matching information before correction of the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is the control program after correction by the program creation assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is the control program after conversion by the program creation assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the debugging method of the control program which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

  Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the following description of the drawings, the same or similar parts are denoted by the same or similar reference numerals. However, it should be noted that the drawings are schematic and the configuration of the apparatus and system is different from the actual one. Therefore, a specific configuration should be determined in consideration of the following description. In addition, it is a matter of course that portions having different configurations are included between the drawings.

  The following embodiments of the present invention exemplify apparatuses and methods for embodying the technical idea of the present invention, and the technical idea of the present invention is the material and shape of the component parts. The structure, arrangement, etc. are not specified as follows. The technical idea of the present invention can be variously modified within the technical scope described in the claims.

(Embodiment)
<Configuration of program creation support device>
As shown in FIG. 1, the program creation support apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of virtual input / output signals included in a control program, which are input / output signals that control virtually assumed plant equipment. A virtual signal acquisition unit 10 that acquires input / output signals, and a real signal acquisition unit that acquires a plurality of actual input / output signals respectively corresponding to a plurality of plant devices in an actual input / output signal that is an input / output signal that controls the plant devices 20, matching unit 30 that verifies the consistency between a plurality of virtual input / output signals and a plurality of actual input / output signals, and matches when a mismatch occurs between the virtual input / output signals and the actual input / output signals. The virtual input / output signal is corrected as described above, and after the matching between the correction input / output signal and the actual input / output signal is completed, the correction unit 40 corrects the control program so as to correspond to the corrected virtual input / output signal. Input / output It includes a detection unit 50 which detects the matching information indicating the correspondence between the No. and the actual output signal, based on the consistency information, and a conversion unit 60 for converting the virtual output signal control program contains the actual input signal.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 2, the program creation support device 100 controls the first plant device 200, the second plant device 201, the third plant device 202,..., The nth plant device 203. The control program installed in the programmable controller 300 is debugged.

  The virtual signal acquisition unit 10 illustrated in FIG. 1 acquires a virtual input / output signal that is an input / output signal defined in the control program illustrated in FIG. The virtual input / output signal includes address information and a signal comment defined experimentally by the control program. The virtual input / output signals included in the control program shown in FIG. 3 are I-1 DOWNMAN, I-2 DOWNMAN, I-3 DOWNMAN, I-4 DOWNMAN, O-5 DOWNMODE, O-DOWNMAN.

The actual signal acquisition unit 20 acquires an actual input signal that is an input / output signal that the programmable controller 300 transmits / receives to / from the first plant device 200 to the nth plant device 203. As the actual input / output signal, the address information and the signal comment included in each of the first plant device 200 to the n-th plant device 203 are acquired. The actual signal acquisition unit 20 is a first plant device based on the type and number of input / output cards mounted on the programmable controller 300, power line connection information to the input / output cards, input / output card addresses, assigned signal names, and the like. The address information and signal comments of the actual input signals of each of the 200th to n-th plant devices 203 are acquired. As shown in FIG. 4, the actual input / output signals are RI380, RI381, RI382, RI383, RI384, RO19C, and RO820. ,
As shown in FIG. 4, the matching unit 30 verifies the consistency between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal. The matching unit 30 performs verification based on the relevance of each signal comment included in the virtual input signal and the actual input / output signal. As shown in FIG. 4, the signal comment No. of the virtual input signal I-1DOWNMAN is shown. Since the signal comment of the actual input signal related to the 1STD manual reduction command is the F1 manual pressure reduction command, it can be seen that the actual input signal corresponding to the virtual input signal I-1DOWNMAN is RI380. Similarly, real input / output signals corresponding to virtual input / output signals are detected, and matching between the respective signals is verified. From the matching status of the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal shown in FIG. 4, it can be seen that the virtual input signal corresponding to the actual input signal RI384 is missing.

  When a mismatch occurs as a result of the consistency verification between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal by the matching unit 30, the correction unit 40 identifies the mismatch information and sets the virtual input / output signal and the matching so that both signals match. Correct the control program. That is, the correction unit 40 generates and deletes input information and output information, which are address information included in the virtual input / output signal, and a corresponding signal comment. As shown in FIG. 4, when the matching unit 30 verifies the consistency between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal, when the virtual input signal with respect to the actual input signal is missing, the correcting unit 40 A corresponding virtual input signal is generated as shown in FIG. That is, I-5DOWNMAN is input information corresponding to RI384, and No. 5 is a signal comment corresponding to the F5 manual pressure command. Generate 5STD manual reduction command. As a result, the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal are matched. As shown in FIG. 6, when the actual input signal corresponding to the input information I-6DOWNMAN of the virtual input signal is not detected, the correction unit 40 displays the input information I-6DOWNMAN and the signal comment No. Delete the virtual input signal containing the 6STD manual reduction command. As shown in FIG. 5, the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal are thereby matched. Next, as shown in FIG. 7, as a result of matching of the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal, the correction unit 40 corrects the control program mounted on the programmable controller 300.

  The detection unit 50 detects the matching information of the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal having consistency by the correction unit 40. The matching information is information indicating a correspondence relationship between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal, and can be formed, for example, in a format as shown in FIG.

  The conversion unit 60 converts the virtual input / output signal included in the control program into a real input / output signal, as shown in FIG. 8, using the matching information shown in FIG.

<Program creation support method by program creation support device>
Next, a method for supporting the creation of the control program by the program creation support apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  (A) In step S101, the virtual signal acquisition unit 10 acquires a virtual input / output signal from the control program. In step S102, the actual signal acquisition unit 20 acquires actual input / output signals from the plant equipment.

  (B) In step S103, the matching unit 30 verifies the consistency between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal. If the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal are matched as a result of the verification by the matching unit 30 in step S104, the detection unit 50 displays the matching information of the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal in step S105. To detect.

  (C) In step S106, the conversion unit 60 converts the virtual input / output signal of the control program into a real input / output signal using the matching information. In step S104, if the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal are inconsistent, the correcting unit 40 identifies inconsistent information in step S107, and in step S108, the correcting unit 40 The output signal and the control program are corrected, and the process proceeds to step S103.

  As described above, the program creation support apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention recognizes address information and signal comments included in an actual input / output signal that is an input / output signal prepared for an actual plant device by a programmer. It is possible to create a program without doing it. This improves the efficiency of the control program creation work by the programmer.

  In addition, the program creation support apparatus can perform control without omission by newly defining an actual input / output signal that is not defined as a control target in the control program as a control target.

  Furthermore, the program creation support device can prevent omissions in the use of actual input / output signals and contributes to improving the quality of the control program when the control program is created by a plurality of programmers such as a large-scale plant. Can do.

  Furthermore, when a new control program is created by diverting a past control program or a standard control program prepared in advance as a template, it is created using an input / output signal different from that of the diversion source control program. However, since the program creation support device automatically converts all input / output signals used in each control program to actual input / output signals, control program creation efficiency is improved and the burden on the programmer is reduced. Can do.

(Other embodiments)
As mentioned above, although this invention was described by embodiment of this invention, it should not be understood that the statement and drawing which make a part of this indication limit this invention. From this disclosure, various alternative embodiments, examples and operational techniques will be apparent to those skilled in the art. It goes without saying that the present invention includes various embodiments not described herein. Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention is defined only by the invention specifying matters according to the scope of claims reasonable from the above description.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Virtual signal acquisition part 20 ... Real signal acquisition part 30 ... Matching part 40 ... Correction part 50 ... Detection part 60 ... Conversion part 100 ... Program creation assistance apparatus

Claims (6)

A program creation support device for supporting creation of a program for controlling plant equipment,
A virtual signal acquisition unit for acquiring a virtual signal for controlling the plant equipment, included in the program;
An actual signal acquisition unit for acquiring an actual signal for normally controlling the plant equipment;
A matching unit for verifying consistency between the virtual signal and the real signal;
When the virtual signal and the real signal are mismatched, the virtual signal is corrected to match the real signal, and the correction unit corrects the program to correspond to the corrected virtual signal;
A detection unit that detects matching information indicating correspondence between the virtual signal and the real signal;
A program creation support apparatus comprising: a conversion unit that replaces the virtual signal of the program with the real signal based on the matching information. A program creation support device for debugging a control program mounted on a programmable controller that controls plant equipment,
In a virtual input / output signal that is an input / output signal for controlling a virtually assumed plant device included in the control program, a virtual signal acquisition unit that acquires a plurality of the virtual input / output signals;
In an actual input / output signal that is an input / output signal that controls the plant equipment, an actual signal acquisition unit that acquires the plurality of actual input / output signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of plant equipment;
A matching unit for verifying consistency between the plurality of virtual input / output signals and the plurality of real input / output signals;
When a mismatch occurs between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal, the virtual input / output signal is corrected to match, and the control program is adapted to correspond to the corrected virtual input / output signal. A correction section for correcting
After the matching between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal is completed, a detection unit that detects matching information indicating a correspondence relationship between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal;
A program creation support apparatus comprising: a conversion unit that converts the virtual input / output signal included in the control program into the actual input signal based on the matching information. The virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal each include specific information that defines the control content, control conditions, and control state to the plant equipment by the virtual input / output signal and the actual input signal,
3. The program creation support apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the matching unit verifies the consistency of the correspondence relationship between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input signal by comparing the contents of the specific information. In the first virtual input / output signal included in the plurality of virtual input / output signals and the first real input / output signal included in the plurality of actual input / output signals,
The correction unit deletes the first virtual input / output signal when there is no real input signal corresponding to the first virtual input / output signal, and the virtual input / output corresponding to the first real input / output signal. 4. The program creation support apparatus according to claim 2, wherein when there is no signal, a new virtual input / output signal corresponding to the first actual input / output signal is generated. A program creation support method for supporting creation of a program for controlling plant equipment,
The virtual signal acquisition unit includes a step of acquiring a virtual signal included in the program for controlling the plant equipment;
The real signal acquisition unit acquires a real signal for normally controlling the plant equipment; and
The matching unit verifies consistency between the virtual signal and the real signal;
A correcting unit, when the virtual signal and the real signal are inconsistent, correcting the virtual signal so as to match the real signal, and correcting the program so as to correspond to the corrected virtual signal; ,
A detecting unit detecting matching information indicating correspondence between the virtual signal and the real signal;
The conversion unit includes a step of replacing the virtual signal of the program with the real signal based on the matching information. A program creation support method for debugging a control program mounted on a programmable controller that controls plant equipment,
The virtual signal acquisition unit includes a plurality of the virtual input / output signals in a virtual input / output signal that is an input / output signal for controlling a virtually assumed plant device included in the control program;
The actual signal acquisition unit, in an actual input / output signal that is an input / output signal for controlling the plant equipment, obtaining a plurality of the actual input / output signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of plant equipment;
The matching unit verifies the consistency between the plurality of virtual input / output signals and the plurality of real input / output signals;
The correction unit corrects the virtual input / output signal so as to match when a mismatch occurs between the virtual input / output signal and the actual input / output signal, and corresponds to the corrected virtual input / output signal. Modifying the control program to:
The detection unit detects matching information indicating a correspondence relationship between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal after matching between the virtual input / output signal and the real input / output signal is completed.
The conversion unit includes a step of converting the virtual input / output signal included in the control program into the actual input signal based on the matching information.

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