JPH0566934A - Programming device for programmable controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable an operator to easily understand the working contents of a device by displaying the device identification name and the graphic showing the shape and the working state of the device in a monitoring state. CONSTITUTION:A 1st storage means 1000 stores the graphic information which shows the shape and the working state of a device that can be controlled by a programmable controller. A 2nd storage means 2000 stores the identification name and the working state information on the device to be monitored which are received from the programmable controller. An extracting device 3000 retrieves the graphic information corresponding to the device identification name and the working state information stored in the means 2000 out of the means 1000. A display means 4000 shows visibly the extracted graphic information together with the device identification name stored in the means 2000. In such a way, the device graphic is displayed together with the device identification name so that an operator can know the contents of the device that is controlled by the programmable controller.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is a programmable program capable of creating a sequence program for a programmable controller and displaying (monitoring) the operating state of equipment controlled by the programmable controller by executing the sequence program. The present invention relates to a programming device for a controller.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art It is widely known that a programmable controller automatically controls electronic equipment based on a sequence program.

The automatic control method of the programmable controller will be briefly described.

In the programmable controller, an operating state signal indicating the operating state of the controlled device, for example, the ON / OFF state of the relay coil is input, and another relay coil based on the ON / OFF state of this relay coil is input according to the above sequence program. To turn on / off. The determined on / off is instructed to the controlled device by the control signal.

The programmable controller executes such processing for all control target components (devices) of the device.

The device that receives the operation state signal and the device that sends the control signal are specified in the form of the device identification name in the sequence program.

The programming device creates the above sequence program in accordance with the instruction operation of the operator and transfers it to the programmable controller.

Further, the programming device receives from the programmable controller an operation state signal and a control signal (these two signals correspond to the operation state information of the present invention) for the device currently controlled, and the device is operated. It also has a monitor function that displays the operating status of the control device by displaying it in association with the identification name.

An example of this display is shown in FIG.

FIG. 9 shows, for example, identification names X000 to X00.
The operation or instruction state of 3 is bit "0" (off), X0
The state of 04 indicates that the bit is "1" (on).

The operator confirms the operation contents of the control device by looking at the display as shown in FIG. 9 on the display screen of the programming device.

[0012]

However, the display of the operation contents of the control device is a list of characters and numerical values indicating the identification name of the device and bit values indicating ON / OFF. For the operator, the identification name and the actual value are displayed. There is still room for improvement in the conventional device in terms of the device correspondence and the difficulty of understanding the on / off state of the device.

Therefore, in view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to monitor (display) the operating state of a control device,
An object of the present invention is to provide a programmable controller programming device in which an operator can easily understand the operation content.

[0014]

In order to achieve such an object, the present invention, in a programmable controller programming device having a monitor function, represents the shape and operating state of a device controllable by the programmable controller. First storage means for storing graphic information, and second storage means for storing a device identification name and operation state information of a device to be monitored received from the programmable controller,
Extraction means for extracting graphic information corresponding to the device identification name and operation state information of the second storage means from the first storage means by a search, and the extracted graphic information together with the device identification name of the second storage means are visible And a display means for displaying.

[0015]

In the present invention, the operator is informed of the contents of the device controlled by the programmable controller by displaying the device graphic in addition to the device identification name. For this purpose, graphic information indicating the shape and operating state of the device is stored in the first storage means, and the graphic information corresponding to the device name to be displayed is extracted by the extraction means.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the basic construction of an embodiment of the present invention.

The programming device of this embodiment is a programming device for a programmable controller having a monitor function.

Reference numeral 1000 denotes a first storage means for storing graphic information representing the shape and operating state of a device controllable by the programmable controller.

Reference numeral 2000 denotes a second storage means for storing the device identification name and operation state information of the device to be monitored, which is received from the programmable controller.

Reference numeral 3000 is an extracting means for extracting the graphic information corresponding to the device identification name and the operation state information of the second storage means from the first storage means by searching.

Reference numeral 4000 is a display means for visually displaying the extracted graphic information together with the device identification name of the second storage means.

FIG. 2 shows a circuit configuration example of a programming device to which the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 2, the following major components are connected to a common bus. The functions of the main components will be described below.

Central processing unit (CPU) 10: Performs a sequence program creation process and a monitor process for the operating state of a controlled device according to a system program. As will be described later, the CPU 10 operates as the extraction means of the present invention.

System program memory 11: CPU1
Area 11A for storing system programs executed by 0
An area 11B for storing a dot pattern for displaying characters and figures relating to the present invention in association with their identification.
Have. The system program memory 11 operates as the first storage means of the present invention.

System work memory 12: has a work area 12A for temporarily storing operation data of the CPU 10, and a registration table area 12B for storing registration information. As shown in FIG. 3, the registration table is a table for storing a device identification name and an identification name of a graphic pattern displayed for this device identification name in association with each other.

Keyboard (input device) 13: CPU 10
Input the operation instruction for and the program information that constitutes the created sequence program.

User program memory 14: The sequence program to be created is expanded and stored in this memory.

Input / output interface (I / O) 15: Information is exchanged between the programmable controllers.

Video memory (VRAM) 16: Display 1
7 has the same number of dot image information storage areas as the number of pixels forming the display screen, and when the pixels on the display screen are turned on,
The dot image information represented by bit "1" and bit "0" when not lit is stored at the display position.

Display 17: The dot image information stored in the VRAM 16 is read out at a constant cycle, and the figure and device identification name are visually displayed as the display means of the present invention.

Prior to the description of the circuit operation, figures used for the display of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

In this embodiment, various electric devices such as monitors and display lamps, which are generally well known as components on the control device side, and a figure representing the shape of the relay contact forming the sequence control circuit are defined. ing.

For this figure, the on / off 2
Two types of figures are prepared for each device as shown in FIG. An identification name is given to the dot pattern for displaying these figures. For example, an identification name of "A" is given as a figure showing a contact point, an identification name of "1" is given for ON, an identification name of "0" is given for OFF, and an identification name of a figure showing ON of a contact is expressed as "A1". To do.

The identification name and the dot pattern are associated with each other, and the area 11 of the program memory 11 is associated with each other.
It is stored in B in advance.

Next, the circuit operation according to the present invention will be described.

(A) Process of assigning graphic identification name to device identification name First method: The operator inputs the device identification name and the corresponding graphic identification name used in the sequence program from the keyboard 13, and the CPU 10 works the work memory 12 It is registered and stored in the registration table of. This method has an advantage that the allocation process can be executed at any time. If the contents of the registration table are secondarily stored in the floppy disk together with the creation sequence program, it is possible to save the trouble of performing the allocation process each time the power is turned on.

Second method: The user program memory 1 is used when the sequence program is created or when the sequence program is transferred to the programmable controller.
4, the device identification name is extracted by the search processing of the CPU 10, and the extracted device identification name is
The writing process of 10 registers and stores in the registration table 12B of the work memory 12 in the order of extraction.

After the registered device identification name is displayed on the display unit 17, the keyboard 13 receives an input of the graphic identification name for each device identification name. The input graphic identification name is written in the registration table 12B by the CPU 10.

In this method, the execution timing of the allocation process is limited, but the operator has the advantage that the number of keyboard operations is small as long as the operator inputs the graphic identification name.

(B) Monitor Process When the operator inputs a command for monitor process from the keyboard 13, the CPU 10 receives the device identification name and its operation state information from the programmable controller, and the work area of the work memory 12 as in the conventional case. To store. At this time, the work memory 12 operates as the second storage means of the present invention.

Next, the CPU 10 performs the display processing according to the present invention by executing the control procedure of FIG.

When the CPU 10 reads the device identification name from the work memory 12, the registration table (see FIG. 3)
For the same device identification name (steps S10 → S20 in FIG. 6). More specifically, the identification name of the registration table 12B and the identification name read from the work memory 12 are compared and compared. If no match is found, the next device identification name is read from the registration table and a match comparison is performed.

By the search processing as described above, the work memory 1
When the device identification name on the same registration table as the second device identification name is detected, the CPU 10 reads the graphic identification name (see FIG. 3) corresponding to this device identification name from the registration table (step S30 in FIG. 6).

The CPU 10 determines whether the status information added to the device identification name on the work memory 12 is on or off,
A graphic identification name corresponding to the determination result is added. For example, the device identification name “X000” is “A” (see FIG.
If the status information of this device identification name is on, the graphic identification “1” is registered.
Is added to create a graphic identification name “A1”. When the state information is off, the created graphic identification name is "A0".

For example, the identification name created at this time is "A
If it is "0", the CPU 10 determines that the memory area 11
B is searched, the dot pattern of the figure corresponding to "A0" is extracted, and expanded and stored in a predetermined position on the VRAM 16.
Further, the device identification name is also converted into a dot pattern and stored in the VRAM 16 as in the conventional case (FIG. 6).
Steps S40 → S60 → S70).

At this time, the CPU 10 operates as the extraction means of the present invention.

Thereafter, the above procedure is repeatedly executed to expand and store the dot pattern of the graphic corresponding to the device identification name on the work memory 12 and its status information in the VRAM 16.

The following two forms are preferable for displaying the device shape together with the device identification name.

(I) When it is desired to know the operation contents of the device itself, the identification name and the graphic image are displayed as shown in FIG.

(Ii) When it is desired to know the interrelationship of devices, as shown in FIG. 8, a sequence command (represented by a circuit symbol in a normal display) on a sequence program called a ladder diagram is represented by a graphic for the device. Replace.

As described above, according to this embodiment,
Since the graphic of the actual device controlled by the programmable controller is displayed, the operator can easily identify the device rather than simply displaying the identification name. In addition, since the operation state is also displayed graphically, it is easy to understand the operation content.

Besides the present embodiment, the following examples can be given.

1) In the present embodiment, a registration table is provided in order to variably set the correspondence between the device identification name and the graphic identification name. However, when the correspondence between the device identification name and the graphic identification name is fixed, It is preferable to directly read out the dot pattern on the graphic surface based on the device identification name without the need for the registration table. For example, devices used on the programmable controller side such as internal contacts and timers can be fixed, so the device identification name can be directly converted into a figure.

For various devices on the control device side defined by the coil command, the relationship between the device identification name and the graphic identification name may be defined in the registration table of this embodiment.

2) In this embodiment, the dot pattern (graphic information) for displaying the device graphic is stored in the system program memory 11, but when a display having a character generator is used, this character The dot pattern for the device figure may be registered in the generator.

[0058]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When monitoring, the device identification name, its shape,
Since the graphic showing the operation state is displayed, the operator can easily understand the operation content of the device.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a specific circuit configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing contents of a registration table according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a device graphic according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a device graphic according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the CPU 10 according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a monitor display example according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a monitor display example according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a conventional monitor display example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 CPU 11 System Program Memory 13 Keyboard 17 Display

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A programming device for a programmable controller having a monitor function, comprising: first storage means for storing graphic information representing a shape and an operating state of a device controllable by the programmable controller; and receiving from the programmable controller. Second storage means for storing the device identification name and operation state information of the monitored device, and graphic information corresponding to the device identification name and operation state information of the second storage means from the first storage means. A programming device for a programmable controller, comprising: extracting means for extracting by search; and displaying means for visually displaying the extracted graphic information together with the device identification name of the second storage means.