JPH0361215B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a system that loads a program from a primary station to a secondary station subordinate to a primary station and then starts operating. The present invention relates to a program loading method for a secondary station that makes it possible to process the program without affecting other secondary stations when loading the program again to a specific secondary station.

In recent years, with the development of automation systems, factories have been automated and factory automation equipment (FA equipment) has been actively introduced. In these FA devices, a plurality of secondary stations subordinate to and controlled by a processor are connected to the primary station, and a robot, etc. is connected to the secondary station. There are system configurations that are controlled and controlled.

In FA equipment with such a system configuration,
Normally, a program that instructs multiple secondary stations to operate is not loaded individually by each secondary station, but is centralized, sent from the primary station to the secondary station, and loaded into the memory of the secondary station. The processor of the secondary station reads this program and controls the robot, etc.

In this case, even if one of the multiple secondary stations, that is, a specific secondary station, needs to load the program again due to a failure, etc., the operation of other secondary stations will not be affected. is necessary.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 3 is a circuit block diagram showing an example of the FA equipment configuration, and FIG. 4 is a diagram explaining a program loading operation.

The processor 4 of the primary station 1 is a disk control circuit 8
reads out the program stored on the floppy disk 7 and stores it in the memory 5. The floppy disk 7 stores programs to be transferred to the secondary stations 2 and 3 as shown in FIG. The program for the next station is stored in the memory 5.

The processor 4 controls the communication control circuit 6 based on the instructions of the transfer instruction program, and sends the transfer program via the line to the communication control circuit 10 of the secondary station 2 as shown in FIG. The processor 9 transfers the transfer program that enters via the communication control circuit 19, starts the loader 13, enables the memory 12, and
Store as a secondary station program.

When the primary station 1 finishes sending out the transfer program, it reads out the program that instructs the operation of the primary station 1 from the floppy disk 7 on which the primary station program is stored, and stores it in the memory 5, as shown in FIG. 4b. read operation.

The processor 9 of the secondary station 2 reads the secondary station program stored in the memory 12 and controls the robot 15 via the interface circuit 11. The same applies to the secondary station 3 as well.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

For example, if an abnormal state occurs in the secondary station 2 due to a failure or the like and it becomes necessary to load the program again, the power is turned off once, the loader 13 is reset, the program in the memory 12 is also erased, and then the program is loaded again. It is necessary to transfer the program from the primary station 1.

This is because once a program has been loaded into the memory 12, the loader 13 is prohibited from enabling the memory 12 in order to prevent unnecessary programs from being stored.

Therefore, the primary station stops controlling the other secondary station 3,
Similarly to the above, after storing the program to be transferred to the secondary station 2 from the floppy disk 7 into the memory 5 and sending it out via the communication control circuit 6, it is necessary to load the program for the primary station 1 to operate again. Therefore, there is a problem that the operation of the entire system stops.

[Means for solving the problem] The above problem is caused by a primary station that controls multiple secondary stations equipped with a loader that once allows writing to the memory, prohibits writing again until it is reset. In a system that starts operation after loading a program into the memory of the secondary station, the program loaded into the secondary station has a stop command from the primary station that causes the processor of the secondary station to stop operating. A stop function is provided to
The secondary station is provided with means for detecting the stoppage of the processor and resetting the loader, and when loading the program to a specific secondary station again,
The primary station sends a processor stop command to the specific secondary station to stop the processor operation, reset the loader, enable the memory, and then start loading the program. The problem is solved by the secondary station program loading method according to the present invention.

[Effect]

In other words, when it becomes necessary to reload a program to a specific secondary station, after the initial program has been loaded, the program loader that prevents the program from being written into memory again is transferred to the specific secondary station. This is done by stopping the station's processor and operating the watchdog timer, so that the primary station does not have to interrupt control of other secondary stations and reload the program to a specific secondary station. This is what I did.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a circuit showing one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating program loading in FIG. 1.

In FIG. 1, a mechanism for monitoring the stop time of the processors 9 of the secondary stations 2 and 3 shown in FIG. Then, the primary station 1 is added to the secondary station program of secondary stations 2' and 3'.
A function is added to stop the processor 9 in response to a stop command from the primary station, and when it becomes necessary to resend the program to the secondary stations 2' and 3', the primary station sends the stop command.

In initial program loading, as shown in FIG. 2a, the primary station program is stored from the floppy disk 7, and then the transfer program is stored in the memory 5 as shown in FIG. That is, the transfer program is stored following the primary station program.

The transfer program includes a stop command that instructs the secondary stations 2' and 3' to stop, and is sent to the secondary station 2' as shown in, for example, but since the program for the secondary station has not been loaded yet. It will be ignored.

Subsequently, the speed change program is sent out as shown in FIG. 2 and stored in the memory 12 as a secondary station program.

When it becomes necessary to load the program again into the secondary station 2', the primary station 1 stores only the transferred program from the floppy disk 7 into the memory 5, as shown in FIG. 2b.

A stop command for the secondary station 2' is sent to the transfer program as shown in FIG. 2b, and the processor 9 stops its operation. The watchdog timer 14 monitors the operation of the processor 9, and resets the loader 13 when a predetermined period of time has elapsed due to the operation being stopped.

Since the loader 13 is reset, the processor 9 stores the transfer program input from the communication control circuit 10 in the memory 12 as a secondary station program.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, the present invention allows the primary station to reload the program of the secondary station without stopping the control of other secondary stations.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a circuit showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram explaining the program loading of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a circuit showing an example of the configuration of FA equipment, FIG. 4 is a diagram explaining the program loading operation. In the figure, 1 is a primary station, 2, 3, 2', 3' are secondary stations, 4, 9 are processors, 5, 12 are memories, 6, 10 are communication control circuits, 7 is a floppy disk, 8 is a 11 is an interface circuit, 13 is a loader, 14 is a watchdog timer, and 15 is a robot.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Once writing to memory is permitted,
From a primary station that controls multiple secondary stations equipped with a loader that prohibits rewriting until it is reset,
In a system that starts operation after loading a program into the memory of the secondary station, the program loaded into the secondary station includes:
A stop function is provided for stopping the operation of the processor of the secondary station in response to a stop command from the primary station, and the secondary station is provided with a means for detecting the stoppage of the processor and resetting the loader. When a program is to be loaded again to a secondary station, the primary station sends a processor stop command to the specific secondary station to stop the operation of the processor, thereby causing the loader to be reset. . A program loading method for a secondary station, characterized in that program loading is performed after enabling the memory.