WO2004055610A1

WO2004055610A1 - System and method for monitoring technical installations and objects

Info

Publication number: WO2004055610A1
Application number: PCT/EP2003/014083
Authority: WO
Inventors: Andreas Schröder; Udo Piontek
Original assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
Priority date: 2002-12-16
Filing date: 2003-12-11
Publication date: 2004-07-01
Also published as: DE10260404A1; AU2003293844A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a system for monitoring technical installations and objects, comprising at least one microcontroller (1), which has a Web server (2), a network interface (4), a data memory (7) and a sensor bus/actuator bus interface (5). The microcontroller also contains a messaging unit (8) provided for carrying out the event-controlled sending of information. The invention also relates to a method therefor during which measured values are recorded, stored, processed and formatted, and can be made accessible by a Web server via a network interface, said Web server being integrated in the microcontroller. Events are triggered by certain measured values, and these events are transmitted in an event-related manner from the microcontroller to a user in the form of messages.

Description

System and method for monitoring technical systems and objects

The invention relates to a system according to the preamble of claim 1 and a method according to the preamble of claim 9.

For the monitoring of technical systems and objects, it is known to connect sensors and / or actuators to a monitoring device located on site via a sensor JAktor bus. One or more of such monitoring devices are in turn connected to a typically central control station by a fieldbus. In these control stations, the measured values provided by the monitoring devices are evaluated centrally and processed graphically. The graphic preparation is usually carried out on the basis of process or flow diagrams.

These systems have proven to be disadvantageous showed that the variety of proprietary bus systems on the market for the connection between the monitoring devices and the control station allows little flexibility in the exchange of monitoring devices from a first manufacturer with those of another and also the data before the central data evaluation and processing in the control station must also be preprocessed at the level of the monitoring device.

Not only are the competing systems with their different standards difficult to connect with each other, but it. Such a structure also requires proprietary hardware and software from a certain manufacturer and requires the user to familiarize himself with the technical specifics for configuration and operation.

A microcontroller for machine control is known from ÜS patent 5 805 442, which has a web server integrated in the microcontroller and a network interface. The user can use this to call up pre-processed and -forced data directly in the microcontroller using a commercially available web browser and to enter control commands.

However, this solution is only conditionally suitable for practical use for monitoring technical systems and objects. It is impractical for monitoring tasks that the (possibly processed) measurement data must be continuously queried by the web browser. The simultaneous monitoring of a large number of such microcontrollers appears impractical with the solution proposed in the aforementioned patent. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system and a method for monitoring technical systems and objects which offers a variety of uses, easy configuration and simple operation in monitoring mode, and in particular the ones discussed above in the prior art Avoids disadvantages.

This object is achieved according to the invention by a system according to claim 1 and by a method according to claim 9.

Because the microcontroller also contains a message unit for event-controlled transmission of information, events can be generated at the level of the monitoring device implemented by the microcontroller and transmitted to a user. Events in this sense are predetermined states that are programmed into the message unit and are triggered, for example, by reaching or exceeding a measured value or other sensor signal and, for example, indicating alarm states.

As a result of the fact that the measurement signals can be continuously queried via the microcontroller-integrated web server, the particular advantage is achieved that, triggered by such an event, the operator or monitoring person is notified by the microcontroller in an event-controlled manner, without the need to continuously query measured values program started on the operator side would be necessary. This is particularly advantageous for safety-critical applications and for a large number of monitored objects. Advantageous further developments of the invention are possible according to the subclaims which refer back to claim 1 or claim 9 and are briefly explained below:

The advantageous further development in that the message unit can be programmed by a user interface provided by the web server means that not only can monitoring be carried out by using any internet-connected computer with a web browser, but by means of a web browser the retrieved information is clearly displayed as a process or flow diagram, but the behavior of the message unit, particularly when alarm events are generated, can be influenced. For example, a certain urgency value and an associated threshold value for a measured value can be assigned to an alarm. If the measured value reaches the threshold value assigned to the alarm, an alarm event is triggered in the message unit and initiated by the microcontroller and transmitted to a user.

Other events that can lead to a notification can be, for example, further alarm states, exceeding or falling below the limit value or changing the state.

If the microcontroller of the system is developed in such a way that the microcontroller has a modem, via which data can be transmitted to the network interface alternatively or simultaneously, this system can also advantageously be used in industrial environments are used in which a computer network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) is not available and / or is not practical for technical reasons. The use of the modem then allows the use of an ordinary, usually existing telephone line for message transmission. This modem can be an analog modem, radio, GSM or digital modem (eg DECT).

If the at least one microcontroller contained in the system is further developed in such a way that it has an e-mail unit for sending data as an e-mail message, an e-mail can typically be sent via SMTP as an alternative to the HTTP protocol and the HTML format - Log will be sent. This makes it possible for the operator to use the measurement data, periodically and / or event-controlled, in a wide variety of types of receiving devices. to be transmitted if these devices are able to receive and display e-mails, such as standard PCs, laptops or handheld computers with only a narrow-band data connection.

For this purpose, it is particularly advantageous to connect the e-mail unit to the message unit for information purposes.

In the sense of the entire present patent application, “informationally connected” means the connection between two functional units in the microcontroller, through a data channel that can be achieved, for example, electrically, optically or through shared memory use, such that a flow of data between the informationally connected functional units and / or instructions can be given. If the system is advantageously further developed in such a way that means for querying and further processing data from further microcontrollers are also contained in the microcontroller, the result is that the monitoring can be carried out in a "modular" manner by hierarchizing the monitoring of the technical system and objects ,

The monitoring user interacts directly with a first one of the microcontrollers of the monitoring system; in this context, this first microcontroller is the "master". This master in turn queries the monitoring information periodically or event-controlled from other microcontrollers and processes it if necessary.

Here, too, the interaction between user and master can advantageously take place via the web server. For data interrogation and transmission between the master and the microcontrollers to be queried (“slaves”), an advantageous embodiment of the invention provides for a data server to be provided in the microcontroller , which is informationally connected to the data storage of the Mi ro controller and is capable of transmitting data via an interface, issuing query commands and reacting to such query commands from the outside. This data server can advantageously differ from the web server present in the microcontroller.

For the acquisition of measurement data in time series and an improved statistical evaluation, it is advantageous to equip the data memory with means for the preparation and archiving of data. A further development of the method according to the invention provides for formatting the event-related messages to be sent as pure text messages. This formatting can take place in the message unit. This advantageously makes it possible to use a message identically in different target formats, for example as an e-mail or as an SMS (Short Message Service).

In the case of formatting as an e-mail message, graphic editing and / or tabular editing of measurement data as a graphic file or / or other file format can also be embedded in an e-mail in a particularly advantageous manner.

One embodiment of the method which is advantageous due to cost savings and reduced technical complexity is the transmission of the message via the network interface.

As an alternative and for the reasons mentioned above, the transmission via a modem integrated in the microcontroller is advantageous. If the method is further developed in such a way that an election phase is provided before the message is transmitted, the microcontroller can contact the user on its own as soon as an event occurs and does not have to be queried by the user by dialing by telephone.

If the monitoring method is developed in such a way that the user authenticates with the monitoring device, namely the microcontroller, increased security against unauthorized access to the data is achieved. Particularly advantageous in connection with the master / slave Configuration, it is particularly advantageous here, after the user has been authenticated to the first microcontroller functioning as a master, to be followed by a further authentication, which the master carries out to the microcontrollers working as a slave. This authentication step between the master and the slave (or the slaves) can also take place independently of the authentication between user and master.

The invention is explained below with reference to two figures. Show it:

1 shows a schematic representation of a usage scenario and the functional structure of a microcontroller used therein, and FIG. 2 shows an exemplary screen representation of the graphically prepared measured values in the web browser of the monitoring user.

FIG. 1 shows the schematic representation of a usage scenario and an exemplary picked microcontroller according to functional units.

This exemplary embodiment of the microcontroller 1 has, as functional base units, a sensor / actuator unit 6, a database unit (DB unit) 3, a web server 2, a data server 7 and a message unit 8. As communication functional units there are also a network interface 4 for connection to computer networks such as LAN or WLAN, an e-mail client 9 for sending data as e-mails, a modem 10 for establishing dial-up connections as well as a sensor JAktor bus - Interface 5 for the transmission of signals from and to actuators and sensors 15.

The data can not only be sent as an email, but also as an SMS. The transmission of the SMS can be sent directly via the modem in the case of a GSM modem, or indirectly via an email SMS gateway from a network provider.

Various options are available for the odus operandi of surveillance. A commercially available, personal computer-based web browser 11 can be used, for example, to query data from the microcontroller 1 illustrated here by the user of the system. - The web browser 11 running on the personal computer communicates via the PC connected to a computer network with the web server also with the. Computer network connected microcontroller 1.

A further possibility for query-based monitoring is that a computer-aided database system 14 automatically or user-controlledly queries data of the microcontroller 1 from its integrated data server 7 via the aforementioned computer network interface 4 or a further data interface.

Another type of monitoring, in contrast to the query by the monitoring user, is that if an event occurs in the microcontroller 1, the microcontroller initiates the sending of a message to the user. In this case, such a message can be sent to a commercially available personal computer-based e-mail client 12 are transmitted, or likewise to other, e-mail-capable devices or further as an SMS text message (Short Message Service) on the mobile phone 13 of a user.

The previously described functional and communication units of the microcontroller 1 can be implemented in hardware and / or software. The sensor / actuator unit 6 can be adapted to many sensor / actuator buses and receives the corresponding signals from the actuators and sensors 15 via the sensor / actuator bus interface 5. The sensor / actuator unit 6 is determined the corresponding monitoring data from these signals and transfers them to the database unit 3.

The database unit (DB unit) is responsible for the processing / processing and archiving of the data, so that it can be further processed and transmitted by the data server 7, the web server 2 or the message unit 8. The data can be transmitted via the computer network interface 4 or via other communication channels, for example the modem 10. A LAN (Local Area Network) based on TCP / IP can be considered as the computer network 4, which considerably simplifies the use of standard Internet technologies, so that the query can also take place from outside via the Internet, or e.g. WANs (Wide Area Networks) can be interposed.

The web server 2 communicates via the computer network with the user's web browser via the HTTP protocol (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and ensures the formatting of the data on websites in HTML format (Hypertext Markup Language) and graphic graphics. based on process or flow diagrams, which can be integrated into the web pages as graphics.

The data server 7 provides an alternative possibility of querying data from the microcontroller 1 from the outside, for example by means of a computer-aided database system 14, which queries and collects data for the purposes of statistics and documentation. Furthermore, the query option of the data server 7 can be used to combine information from a plurality of microcontrollers used in the monitoring system.

The notification unit 8 is responsible for the monitoring and notification in the event of an alarm, exceeding or falling below the limit value or changes in status by means of e-mail, SMS or similar formats. For this purpose, the message unit, previously configured by the user via the web server 2, monitors the occurrence of previously determined circumstances which trigger an event. As previously enumerated, such events can be exceeding or falling below limit values, changes in state or predefined alarm situations. In such a case, the message unit can, depending on the configuration, call up certain data from the database unit and provide it with further information, format it as a text message, after which this text message is forwarded to the e-mail client 9, which sends the text message as an e-mail to the Recipient or his e-mail client 12 sent. Such e-mails can also contain graphics or tabular compilations, for example in Excel format, for example as an e-mail attachment.

Alternatively, the message unit can cause a corresponding text message as an SMS message to the To send user 13 mobile phone. There is also the possibility that the message unit 8 causes the modem 10 to set up a dial-up connection via which the data can be transmitted. This is particularly advantageous if no computer networks are available in the spatial application area of the monitoring system or if the monitoring person is not regularly located at the computer workstation.

Not shown in more detail in FIG. 1, but in this application scenario of practical importance is the hierarchically modular functioning of the overall system in a specific application:

In this specific application, the microcontroller 1 shown in FIG. 1 is used as the "master"; there are further microcontrollers constructed analogously to microcontroller 1 via the network with the master. These other microcontrollers are used as "slaves". The microcontroller 1 used as the master queries the measured values of the slave microcontrollers and processes them further. This query can take place via the data server 7 of the slave microcontrollers. The computer network can be used to connect the microcontrollers to one another.

It is true that a user can query each of the various microcontrollers via his or her integrated web server 2 via his standard web browser 11. However, the particular advantage is the master / slave configuration then to ^'play when the user queries the existing on the master microcontroller 1 Web server 2 described here as the master 1, the data of the various Slave microcontroller combined, processed and clearly arranged.

The master can combine the data of the different slaves, process it further and display it clearly, and also serve as central access (gateway) to the individual slaves.

The safety of the use of this configuration ^panel is increased when the querying user first against the requested microcontroller uss authenticate. It is particularly advantageous if the authentication is also decentralized, in such a way that the user only authenticates himself to the master microcontroller, after which the master microcontroller forwards the authentication information to the downstream slave microcontrollers, if necessary, or a a completely independent authentication process between the master and assigned slaves takes place from the aforementioned authentication.

A particular advantage of this hierarchical-modular configuration of a multitude of microcontrollers in master and slave units is that

Data of the monitored sub-areas per microcontroller are not first brought together in a central node and then evaluated, but the information acquisition, processing and visualization for each sub-area is carried out at the level of the corresponding monitoring node (microcontroller). Compared to the conventional monitoring method as described in the prior art, this procedure leads to a considerable reduction in the resources required, for example hardware capacity, required software and their components. complexity and computing time. The reduced demands on the performance of hardware and software now allow the use of microcontrollers for demanding monitoring tasks in complex systems.

Another advantage is the high availability. The failure of a slave does not lead to the failure of the entire system. In individual cases, the slaves and / or the master can be kept redundant, which results in an even higher availability.

FIG. 2 shows a screenshot of a monitoring screen as it is displayed in the web browser (FIG. 1:11) of a monitoring person.

This monitoring screen shows a solar powered thermal refrigeration system. The visualization, which was carried out here by the web server of the master microcontroller (FIG. 1: 2), takes place in the same graphic preparation as a control center according to the prior art would use a process diagram.

In this exemplary embodiment, sensors already present in the system were adapted. The system can be monitored via any personal computer connected to the computer network. Any notifications are forwarded to the surveillance personnel (operator, on-call, etc.) by e-mail and SMS.

Claims

claims

1. System for monitoring technical systems and objects, with at least one microcontroller (1), which has a web server (2), a network interface (4), a data memory (3) and a sensor / actuator bus interface (5) includes,

characterized in that

In the microcontroller (1) there is also a message unit (8) for system-related reasons

Event-driven sending of information.

2. System according to claim 1, characterized in that the message unit (8) is programmable by a user interface provided by the web server (2).

3. System according to one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the microcontroller (1) further comprises a modem (10), via which data can be transmitted alternatively or simultaneously to the network interface (4).

4. System according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the microcontroller has an e-mail unit (9) for sending data as an e-mail message.

5. System according to claim 4, characterized in that the e-mail unit (9) information is connected to the message unit (8) for transmission. Event-driven reporting as an e-mail message.

6. System according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the microcontroller (1) further includes means (3, 7) for querying and

Further processing of data from other microcontrollers.

7. System according to claim 6, characterized in that the query means (3, 7) contain means for authentication.

8. System according to one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the data memory is equipped with means (3) for the preparation and archiving of data and in the microcontroller 1er there is also a data server (7) which is connected to the data memory ( 3) is informationally related.

9. A method for monitoring technical systems and objects, whereby measured values are recorded, stored, processed and formatted in a microcontroller (1) and made available via a network interface (4) by a web server (2) integrated in the microcontroller,

characterized in that

Events are triggered by certain measured values and these are transmitted as events to the user by the microcontroller (1).

10. The method according to claim 9, characterized in that the messages are formatted as text messages.

11. The method according to any one of claims 9 or 10, characterized in that these messages

.formatted and delivered as email messages.

12. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 11, characterized in that the transmission takes place via the network interface (4).

13. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 12, characterized in that the transmission takes place via a modem (10) integrated in the microcontroller (1).

14. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 13, characterized in that a microcontroller (1) is used as a master and at least one further microcontroller as a slave (1), the master querying measured values from the at least one slave.

15. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 14, characterized in that an authentication is carried out between the master and the at least one slave.

16. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 15, characterized in that the processing and formatting comprises the preparation of the data in process and / or flow diagrams.