JPH07129234A - Monitoring method for automated facility - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable parallel processing and speed up the operation of the automated facilities by making a data processing system and an image processing system separate and independent. CONSTITUTION:A host computer 11 which gathers information in a monitoring system for this automated facilities is connected to a 1st network 10. A data processing computer 100 is connected to the 1st network 10. The data processing system computer 100 gathers data from the automated facilities 50 by using a work station and transfers them to the host computer 11. Further, the gathered data and data received from the host computer 11 are edited. The edited data are passed to screen processing system computers 102a-102c. The screen processing system computers 102a-102c are connected to a 2nd network 104 and performs screen processes for the data received from the data processing system computer 100 to display data after the screen processing on display screens.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for monitoring automated equipment in which centralized management of automated equipment is performed by a host computer and partial operation of the automated equipment is monitored by a plurality of terminal devices connected to the host computer. Regarding

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, automation is actively carried out in an article assembly line or the like. The equipment for automating the assembly process is becoming more complex year by year. For this reason, large-scale computers such as host computers are being used to manage automated equipment.

A conventional system configuration of this type of system is shown in FIG.
Shown in. In FIG. 7, terminals, in this case a plurality of workstations 12, are connected to a host computer 11 by a communication network 10. The workstations 12 are computers that can operate independently of each other, and receive statistical processing results such as the operating state and operation record value of the automated equipment 50 from the host computer 11 via the communication network 10.

The result of this statistical processing is the workstation 1
2 shows the operating state of each of the automated equipment parts where 2 is installed. The statistical processing results are displayed on the display devices a to c of the connection, and the operator watches the display screen to monitor the operating state of the automated equipment part.

Since there are often a plurality of display screen formats, the workstations 12a to 12c display the display screen corresponding to the contents of the monitor by executing the respective screen display software programs. . An example of a software program for this is shown in FIG.
Shown in.

Generally, the information to be displayed is grouped in screen units, and when the operator gives an instruction to switch the screen from the keyboard, the arithmetic processor such as the CPU of the workstation 12 internally displays the newly requested screen display data. It is read from the memory and edited in the format of the display screen on the image memory (S51). CPU above
Clears the display screen of the display device and displays new data after editing (S52 to S53). On the other hand, when updating the contents of the data on the display screen, the host computer 1
Update data is sent from 1 to the workstation 12 at a constant cycle or at an arbitrary timing.

After collecting the data, the CPU of the workstation 12 identifies the type of screen currently displayed (S61 to S62). Thereafter, the CPU selects the data used in the currently used screen from the collected data, converts it into screen constituent elements, and updates and displays (S63 to S63).
64). It should be noted that the conversion into screen constituent elements usually means conversion of information used for communication into numbers or character strings in a commonly used engineering unit system. It may also refer to conversion of a data signal indicating the on / off state of a contact or the like into a figure or character string that can be generally judged. In addition, the received numerical data may be summed to create new display data. Hereinafter, such conversion processing into screen constituent elements will be collectively referred to as screen processing, and processing for editing data into a data group for displaying on the display screen will be collectively referred to as data editing processing.

In such a system, for example, the number of revolutions of the motor of the automated equipment is detected by the tachometer and collected in the host computer 11. The host computer 11 transmits the level value indicated by the detection signal to the specific workstation 12a. The workstation 12a performs screen processing to perform data editing processing on the received level value and display it on the display screen in the form of rotation speed. As a monitoring system for such an automated facility, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 19624/1990 is proposed.

[0009]

Workstation 1
In 2, in addition to the above-mentioned monitoring process, a process of detecting the operating state of the equipment of the automated equipment and transmitting it to the host computer 11 may be executed. Therefore, the load on the workstation 12 becomes high. In other words, the amount of information processing to be executed by the workstation 12 becomes large, so that the cycle of repeatedly executing each process becomes long.

In particular, the response of the communication performed with the equipment in the automated equipment is delayed, and the response operation of the automated equipment is delayed.

Therefore, in view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to collect the information of the automation equipment, reduce the load on the terminal for monitoring the operation contents of the automation equipment, and contribute to the high-speed processing of the automation equipment. It is to provide a monitoring method for automated equipment that can do so.

[0012]

In order to achieve such an object, the invention of claim 1 is a computer for performing data processing of a data format assigned to data indicating an operating state of an automated facility (hereinafter referred to as data). Processing system computer) and screen processing computer (hereinafter referred to as screen processing system computer) are stored in advance, and the data processing system computer collects data indicating the operating state of the automated equipment and performs the data processing. The system computer executes the editing of the data and transmits it to the screen processing system computer according to the storage order of the data format, and the screen processing system computer identifies the type of the received data according to the data format, It is characterized in that screen processing is performed on the identified data and the data is displayed.

The invention of claim 2 is characterized in that the format of the data is transferred from the data processing system computer to the screen processing system computer before displaying the data.

[0014]

According to the first aspect of the invention, the editing process and the screen editing process of the collected data, which were conventionally performed by one computer, are divided and executed by the two computers so that the editing process and the screen editing process are performed in parallel. Processing is shortened, the processing cycle involved in monitor processing is shortened. Further, by storing the same data format in the two computers, it becomes easy to change the number of data and the like.

According to the second aspect of the invention, since the data format is transferred from one computer to the other computer, when changing the data, the data format of one computer may be modified.

[0016]

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

FIG. 1 shows the system configuration of a monitoring system for automated equipment to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 1, a host computer 11 that collects information is connected to a first network 10. A data processing computer 100 is connected to the first network 10. A workstation is used as the data processing system computer 100, and data is collected from the automated equipment 50 and transferred to the host computer 11. It also edits the collected data and the data received from the host computer 11. The edited data is delivered to the screen processing system computers 102a to 102c described later.

The screen processing system computers 102a to 102c are connected to the second network 104, and the data processing system computer 10 is connected.
Screen processing is performed on the data received from 0 and the data after the screen processing is displayed on the display screen. The present embodiment is characterized in that the data processing and the screen processing which were conventionally performed by one computer are configured to be performed by two computers, and that the transfer method for transferring the data between the two computers is performed.

The internal configuration of the data processing computer 100 is shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 200 denotes a data collection unit using an interface, which collects data to be used for display from the automated equipment 50 via the equipment network at a constant cycle. The data editing unit 204 using a CPU or MPU receives the collected data from the data collecting unit 200 and the RAM 2
The data is stored in the collected data storage area 202 in 51. The data editing unit 204 performs data processing on the collected data to create data before screen processing.

The array of data edited at this time follows the contents described in the variable name table shown in FIG. The created data is stored in the variable name table 206 in the hard disk 250. A connection terminal management table 212 having data for communication such as the terminal number of the screen processing system computer 102 is stored in the hard disk 250. Edit data transmission unit 2 using interface
10 transmits the edited data created by the data editing unit 204 to a predetermined screen processing system computer 102 via the second network 104.

Variable name table 206 according to the present invention
The configuration of is shown in FIG. In the variable name table 206, variable names defined by a character code, for example, a character string of 16 characters or less are arranged in the same order as the arrangement of the data in the above-mentioned edit data storage area 208. In this case, each variable name carries a data type indicating the type of variable, its data size, and a relative address in the edited data storage address, that is, information on the data format of the present invention.

The variable type is, for example, a character, word, long, or character string. The data size indicates the number of bytes, 1 byte for characters and 2 for words.
Bytes, 4 bytes if long. If the variable type is a character string, the number of bytes specified by the data size becomes the length of the character string.

As the identifier indicating the data type in the variable name table 206, for example, "C" is used for a character, "W" is used for a word, "L" is used for a long character, and "S" is used for a character string. Identify the data type. However, the structure of the variable name table described above is only an example used in this embodiment, and is not limited to the structure of this example.

FIG. 4 shows the internal configuration of the screen processing computer 102 of FIG. An interface is used as the edit data receiving unit 220, and receives edit data from the data processing system computer 100 via the second network 104. A CPU is used for the screen editing unit 222, and edit data is stored in the edit data storage area 208 in the RAM 251. The screen editing unit 222 stores a variable name table 206 in the hard disk 250 that converts the edited data into screen components and displays the screen components on the display device 224. The variable name table 206 is the data processing system computer 10.
It has the same structure as the variable name table 206 in 0. The contents described in the variable table 206 are received from the screen processing system computer 102 when the system is started.

The screen editing section 222 uses the variable name table 20.
6, the edit data in the RAM 251 is read and written.

The data display processing executed in such a system configuration will be described with reference to FIG. The data processing computer 100 is first started up in the monitoring system. After the system startup processing is completed (S30
0), and waits for the transmission request of the variable name table from the screen processing system computer 102 (S302).

This processing is a module different from the above-mentioned processing for collecting, editing and transmitting equipment monitoring data. When the screen processing computer 102 is started up, a variable name table transmission request is sent from the screen processing system computer 102. In response to this, the data processing system computer 100 exits the process of waiting for the variable name table transmission request, reads the contents of the variable name table 206 in the hard disk 250, and sends it to the screen processing system computer 102 (S304 to S304).
306). The data processing system computer 100 registers the identification name of the screen processing system computer 102 that has requested the variable name table in the variable management table 212, and prepares to receive the variable name request of another screen processing system computer 102 (S308 to S).
302).

On the other hand, on the side of the screen processing system computer 102, after the variable name transmission request is transmitted to the data processing system computer 100 after activation, it waits for reception of the variable name table (S31).
0-S312). The screen processing system computer 102 that has received the variable name table writes the variable name table in the variable table 206 (see FIG. 4) in the hard disk 250 (S314). After that, the screen processing system computer 102 receives the data sent from the data processing system computer 100, stores the edited data (see FIG. 4) in the RAM 251 using the contents of the variable name table, and displays the screen (S316).

In the system described above, it is preferable that a medium computer such as a workstation is used as the data processing computer 100 and a small computer such as a personal computer is used as the screen processing computer 102. The screen processing system computer 102 may be integrally connected to the first network 10. The configuration in this case is shown in FIG. A system in which a plurality of screen processing system computers 102 shown in FIG. 4 are connected to the edit data transmission interface 210 of such an integrated computer may be considered.

As described above, since the data processing and the screen processing are performed in parallel by the two computers, the processing cycle can be shortened as compared with the case where they are executed in time series by one computer. Further, since the edit data is transferred using the same variable name table, the software of both computers can be easily modified even when the edit data is changed. Also, the correction time is shortened.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Parallel processing is possible by separating the data processing system from the screen processing system. For this reason, the repetition cycle of the monitor process is shortened, and it is possible to cope with the speedup of automated equipment. Further, in the screen processing system, it is possible to create a screen based on the data format even if there is no data itself, and thus it is possible to shorten the processing time even when the system is developed or the specifications are changed.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a data processing system computer 100 of FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the structure of a data name table.

4 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a screen processing system computer 102 of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the data processing system computer 100 and the screen processing system computer 102.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing another system configuration.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a conventional system configuration.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a conventional processing procedure.

[Explanation of symbols]

 50 automation equipment 100 data processing system computer 102 screen processing system computer 200 data collection unit 204 data editing unit 206 variable name table 210 edit data transmitting unit 220 edit data receiving unit 222 screen processing unit 224 display device

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A data format assigned to data indicating an operating state of automated equipment is stored in advance in a computer for data processing and a computer for screen processing, and the computer for performing the data processing stores the data format of the automated equipment. A computer that collects data indicating an operation state, the computer that performs the data processing executes the editing of the data, transmits the data to the computer that performs the screen processing according to the storage order of the data format, and receives the data by the computer that performs the screen processing. The method for monitoring automated equipment is characterized in that the type of the identified data is identified according to the data format, and the identified data is subjected to screen processing and displayed. 2. The automation equipment monitoring according to claim 1, wherein the format of the data is transferred from a computer for performing the data processing to a computer for performing the screen processing before displaying the data. Method.