WO2017000844A1

WO2017000844A1 - Method, device and system for controlling instrument automatically

Info

Publication number: WO2017000844A1
Application number: PCT/CN2016/087106
Authority: WO
Inventors: 郭树强; 程智刚
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2015-06-30
Filing date: 2016-06-24
Publication date: 2017-01-05
Also published as: CN106325117A; CN106325117B

Abstract

A method, device and system for controlling an instrument automatically. The method includes that: an access request accessing to at least one instrument (206) by a client (204) is received, and an instrument agent (203) is started according to the access request (step 510); an instrument address of at least one instrument (206) is analyzed by the instrument agent (203), a corresponding instrument connection interface in an instrument abstract driver (202) is called according to each instrument address, according to the instrument connection interface called, the corresponding instrument (206) is connected, and the connection state is maintained (step 520); according to an instruction received from a client (204) and an instrument driver function interface in the instrument abstract driver (202), the working state information of the corresponding instrument (206) or an operating instrument (206) is obtained by the instrument agent (203) (step 530).

Description

Method, device and system for automatically controlling instrument

Technical field

This application relates to, but is not limited to, the field of automated instrumentation technology.

Background technique

In the related instrument automation control technology, as shown in FIG. 1 , it is a schematic diagram of the working principle of the instrument automatic control in the related art. In the working principle shown in FIG. 1, the specific instrument operation instruction is adopted, and the automatic control of the specific instrument is implemented based on the script, for example, the script is, for example, a control/test script, and the script is only caused by the binding relationship between the script and the instrument. Can be applied to a meter, script applicability and portability is poor; need to directly use the remote operation instructions provided by the instrument manufacturer, so that developers must understand the remote operation characteristics of the instrument and remote command rules, increasing the learning cost and development difficulty; With the introduction of new instruments, scripts for new instruments must be continuously developed, resulting in a large number of repeated development scripts; and the increase in the number of scripts greatly increases the cost of script maintenance.

In the instrument automation connection technology in the related art, since the script is bound to the specific instrument, the script flexibility is poor; the instrument operation instructions of various types of instruments are different, and the difficulty of developing the script is increased; the user needs artificial Match instruments and drivers.

Therefore, the related art has the following problems: different manufacturers' instruments may use different communication interfaces and protocols to establish a connection between the instrument and the instrument server, so it is necessary to develop corresponding instrument drivers according to different communication interfaces and protocols, and increase the script modification cost. .

Summary of the invention

The following is an overview of the topics detailed in this document. This Summary is not intended to limit the scope of the claims.

The present invention provides a method, device and system for automatically controlling a meter to solve the problem in the related art that a corresponding instrument driver needs to be developed according to different communication interfaces and protocols.

A method of automatically controlling a meter, comprising:

Receiving an access request of the client to access at least one meter, and starting the instrument according to the access request Table agent

The meter agent parses out the meter address of the at least one meter, invokes a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, and connects with the corresponding meter through the called meter connection interface to maintain the connection status. ;

The meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the meter driving function interface in the meter abstract driving.

Optionally, in the method, the meter is connected to the device to be tested by using a switch matrix, and the meter agent controls the switch matrix to switch the meter and the standby by starting a separate thread or a sub-process Measure the line between the devices.

Optionally, in the method, before the receiving the access request of the client to access the at least one meter, the method further includes:

An underlying instrument state scan function is defined in each instrument underlying driver, and the underlying instrument state scan function in each of the instrument underlying drivers has the same name;

An instrument state scan function having the same name as the underlying meter state scan function is defined in the meter abstract driver, and the meter state scan function is used to call an underlying meter state scan function in each of the meter underlying drivers.

Optionally, in the method, the meter agent invokes a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, and connects with the corresponding meter through the called meter connection interface to maintain the connection state. include:

The meter agent invokes the meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver, and transmits the meter address to the meter connection interface;

After determining the address type of the instrument address, the meter connection interface invokes a corresponding communication protocol library to cycle through the underlying connection function in each instrument underlying driver;

When the round-robin to the underlying connection function of the underlying driver of the meter returns successfully, the round-robin is terminated, and the meter abstraction drive records the underlying driver of the current round-robin, and the meter connection interface returns successfully;

The instrument connection interface returns a failure when the underlying connection function that rotates all of the underlying drivers of the instrument returns a failure.

Optionally, in the method, the meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the instrument driving function interface in the meter abstract driving, including :

The meter agent stores the instruction received from the client into the communication queue, and the sub-process of the currently connected corresponding meter parses the instruction to obtain a corresponding underlying function function of the meter, according to the instrument driving function in the instrument abstract driver The interface calls the underlying function of the meter;

The meter passes the returned result to the child process, the child process saves the result to a receive queue, and the meter agent returns the result to the client via a Transmission Control Protocol TCP connection.

Optionally, in the method, the meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the instrument driving function interface in the meter abstract driving, and include:

During the process of maintaining the connection state between the child process of the meter agent and the meter, the sub-process calls the underlying instrument state scan function to read the working state information of the meter in real time, and obtains the obtained information. The working status information of the meter is stored in the queue or database.

An apparatus for automatically controlling a meter, comprising:

The client request receiving module is configured to: receive an access request of the client to access the at least one meter, and start the meter proxy according to the access request;

The meter agent is configured to: parse out the meter address of the at least one meter received by the client request receiving module, and invoke a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, by using the called meter The connection interface is connected with the corresponding meter and maintains the connection state;

The meter agent is further configured to: obtain the working status information of the corresponding meter or operate the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the instrument driving function interface in the meter abstract driving.

Optionally, the device further includes:

a switch matrix, configured to: connect the meter to a device under test, and the meter agent controls the switch matrix to switch the meter and the device to be tested by starting a separate thread or a sub-process The line between the backups.

Optionally, the device further includes:

The underlying driver of the instrument is set to: define an underlying instrument state scanning function in each instrument underlying driver, and the underlying instrument state scanning function in each of the instrument underlying drivers adopts the same name;

An instrument abstraction driver is configured to: define, in the meter abstract driver, an instrument state scan function having the same name as the underlying meter state scan function, the gauge state scan function for calling the bottom layer of each of the instrument underlying drivers Instrument status scan function.

Optionally, in the device, the instrument agent includes:

The meter address forwarding module is configured to: invoke the meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver, and transmit the meter address to the meter connection interface;

The instrument abstract driver includes:

The instrument address detecting module is configured to: instruct the meter connection interface to call the corresponding communication protocol library after determining the address type, and to cycle through the bottom layer connection function in each instrument underlying driver;

A system for automatically controlling instruments, including:

a client, connected to the meter agent, the client is set to: run a script;

The client request receiving module is configured to: receive an access request of the client to access the at least one meter, and start the meter agent according to the access request;

The meter agent is configured to: parse out a meter address of the at least one meter received by the client request receiving module, and invoke a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, by calling The instrument connection interface is connected with the corresponding instrument and maintains the connection state;

The meter agent is further configured to: obtain an operation status information of the corresponding meter or operate the meter according to an instruction received from the client and an instrument driving function interface in the instrument abstract driving;

The meter is set to be connected to the instrument agent through a communication interface.

The method, device and system for automatically controlling the instrument provided by the embodiment of the invention obtain the working state information or the operation instrument of each instrument by scanning each instrument connected to the instrument server, because the instrument abstract drive and its package The instrument connection interface eliminates the difference of the underlying driving of each instrument. Therefore, the technical solution of the automatic control instrument provided by the embodiment of the invention does not need to know the type of the instrument, and only needs to input the instrument address to realize the pair by calling the instrument abstract driver. Automatic control of the instrument.

Other aspects will be apparent upon reading and understanding the drawings and detailed description.

BRIEF abstract

1 is a schematic diagram showing the working principle of instrument automatic control in the related art;

2 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for automatic control of an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a schematic diagram of a development structure of an instrument underlying driver in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a schematic diagram of a working principle of an instrument abstract driving in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic flowchart of a method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart diagram of another method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart diagram of still another method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart diagram of still another method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

10 is a schematic structural diagram of an instrument agent in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention;

11 is a meter switch matrix in an apparatus for automatic control of an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention; A schematic diagram of the working principle of the selection module;

12 is a schematic diagram of a working principle of a meter address forwarding module in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of an automatic control system for a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Embodiments of the invention

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that, in the case of no conflict, the features in the embodiments and the embodiments herein may be arbitrarily combined with each other.

The steps illustrated in the flowchart of the figures may be executed in a computer system in accordance with a set of computer executable instructions. Also, although logical sequences are shown in the flowcharts, in some cases the steps shown or described may be performed in a different order than the ones described herein.

FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention. The method and apparatus for instrument automation control provided by the embodiments of the present invention involve multiple concepts. Before describing the embodiments of the present invention, some basic concepts in the instrument automation control system are first described in detail. The meanings of these concepts are as follows:

The instrument underlay driver 201 is invoked by the meter abstraction driver 202 and communicates directly with the meter 206 via the communication interface 205. The instrument underlying driver 201 is a driver developed for each instrument and is the basis of instrument automation control. The underlying driver 201 abstracts the functions and operation steps of the instrument, and uniformly defines a set of instrument underlying function functions, namely the Application Programming Interface (API). The underlying function of the instrument includes the function name, the number of parameters, Parameter type and return value type, etc. The underlying driver 201 includes a connection function to establish a connection with the meter 206, and various functional functions of the meter 206. The connection function also includes the uniqueness of authenticating the identity of the meter, and identity authentication is essential for automatically identifying the type of meter. Each instrument has a certain characteristic or special identifier belonging to the instrument. These characteristics/identities can be found by remote commands provided by the manufacturer. For example, the serial instrument can be authenticated by the serial communication protocol customized by the instrument. The physical interface of the instrument includes, but is not limited to, an Ethernet connection, a serial connection, and a General-Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB) connection. The communication method of the instrument includes a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). User datagram Protocol (User Datagram Protocol, referred to as: UDP), remote terminal protocol (telnet), serial communication port (Cluster Communication Port, referred to as: COM port) communication and GPIB port communication. The underlying function of the instrument implements the actual operation of the instrument and should be applied to all types of instruments developed in the future. Therefore, it must be written in strict accordance with the definition of the interface.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a development structure of an instrument underlying driver in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention. The underlying driver 201 of the instrument adopts a three-layer structure: a data transmission layer, a command implementation layer, and a command interface layer. The data transmission layer realizes simple transmission and reception functions between the instrument and the meter. Regardless of the communication mode adopted by the instrument, each instrument underlying driver 201 supports a communication protocol, and the transmission and reception functions of the data transmission layer are developed based on the communication protocol. . The command implementation layer, based on the data transmission layer, combines the characteristics of the meter itself to realize the functions of the instrument operation and query. The command interface layer implements a specific operation or query function based on the command implementation layer, and the command interface conforms to the uniformly defined underlying function of the instrument, and the underlying function of the instrument implements the actual operation of the instrument.

The instrument abstraction driver 202 calls the instrument underlying driver 201 and is called by the meter agent 203 to define a number of meter driver function interfaces. The meter abstraction driver 202 defines the same-named function-instrument-driven function interface of all the underlying function functions of the meter in the underlying driver 201. When the identity of the meter 206 is confirmed, the same-named function in the instrument abstraction driver 202-meter The driver function interface can directly point to the function of the same name in the instrument underlying driver 201 corresponding to the meter 206 - the underlying function of the meter.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing the working principle of an instrument abstract driving in the device automatic control device provided by the embodiment of the present invention. The meter abstraction driver 202 detects the legality of the meter address passed by the meter agent 203 at the entrance, and determines the type of the meter address by the keyword, that is, the physical connection mode of the meter, thereby determining the connection address of the meter. The meter abstraction driver 202 attempts to establish a connection with the corresponding meter through the connection address, and then in turn calls each meter bottom driver 201 to authenticate the meter 206; if the identity information returned by the meter 206 conforms to the meter defined in the current meter bottom driver 201 The result of the identity authentication can be determined that the current instrument underlying driver 201 is applicable to the currently connected meter. If not, the user continues to try to match the next underlying driver 201 until the correct underlying driver 201 is matched, thereby implementing the underlying driver of the meter. Automatic matching/adaptation between 201 and meter 206.

When the meter agent 203 calls the instrument driver function interface in the meter abstraction driver 202, it automatically switches to the underlying function function of the same name in the instrument underlying driver 201 that has been adapted, so that Automated control of the meter without knowing the type of meter is achieved. For example, when the meter agent 203 receives the command to turn on the meter laser, it will invoke the function API of the meter abstract driver 202 corresponding to the meter laser. Since the identity of the connected meter 206 has been confirmed at this time, the meter laser in the meter abstract driver 202 is turned on. The function API will accurately find and call the instrument underlying function function of the meter laser in the meter bottom driver 201 corresponding to the connected meter 206.

The meter agent 203 is coupled to the client 204 for scripting and to invoke the meter abstraction driver 202.

The client 204 is an input of the entire instrument automation control system and is connected to the meter agent 203. It can be an interpreter that runs a script, or it can be a more intuitive command line window or User's Interface (UI) interface.

The communication interface 205, the interface between the meter 206 and the test machine running the instrumentation agent 203, the instrument communication interface supported by the invention includes but is not limited to Ethernet, serial port and GPIB, etc., wherein the communication protocol supported by the Ethernet connection includes: telnet, TCP and UDP, etc.

The meter 206, the object of the automatic control, one end of the meter 206 is connected to the testing machine running the meter agent 203 through different communication interfaces, and the other end is connected to the device to be tested 208 through the switch matrix; the meter 206 can also directly and test according to the need Device 208 is connected.

The switch matrix 207 has one end connected to all the meters 206 and the other end connected to all the devices 208 to be tested. The remote control is supported, and the line switching between the meter 206 and the device under test 208 is supported by the instruction, and the automatic control of the meter 206 is realized to a greater extent, and the manual line change is eliminated.

The device under test 208 is a target object for automatic control, and is connected to the switch matrix, and can also be directly connected to the meter 206 as needed.

During the process of maintaining the connection between the meter server and the meter 206, the timing scan connection status, the busy and idle status of the meter 206, the connection and usage of the meter are presented in real time, and the switch 206 is used to implement the relationship between the meter 206 and the device under test 208. Automatic switching of connected lines.

FIG. 5 is a schematic flowchart diagram of a method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention. The method for automatically controlling the meter provided in this embodiment may include the following steps, step 510: Step 530:

Step 510: Receive an access request of the client to access at least one meter, according to the access request. Start the instrumentation agent;

Step 520: The meter agent parses out the meter address of the at least one meter, invokes the corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each meter address, and connects with the corresponding meter through the called meter connection interface to maintain the connection state;

Step 530: The instrument agent obtains the working status information or the operation instrument of the corresponding meter according to the instruction received from the client and the instrument driving function interface in the instrument abstract driving.

According to the technical solution provided by the embodiment of the present invention, each instrument that is accessed is scanned on the instrument server to obtain the working state information or the operation instrument of each instrument, and the meter abstraction driver 202 and the packaged instrument connection interface thereof eliminate the respective instruments. The difference between the underlying driver 201 and the method provided by the embodiment of the present invention, in the application, does not need to know the type of the meter, and only needs to input the meter address to enable automatic control of the meter by calling the meter abstract driver 202.

The method for automatically controlling the instrument provided by the embodiment of the present invention is generally applied to an instrument server, and the instrument server can control a plurality of meters. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, meter 206 is coupled to device under test 208 via a switch matrix, and meter agent 203 can effect connection, management, and control of the switch matrix by initiating a separate thread or sub-process. When the instrument used is changed, or the device to be tested 208 connected to the meter 206 is changed, and the connection between the meter 206 and the device under test 208 needs to be switched, the corresponding instruction is issued to the meter agent 203 or the configuration file is modified. Automatic switching of the connection between the meter 206 and the device under test 208 can be achieved.

In the process of the method for automatically controlling the instrument provided by the embodiment of the present invention, a plurality of different functional objects are involved, and each of the functional objects has a function that should be implemented by itself, and needs to have a corresponding relationship with other functional objects, and completes the entire Control process.

In practical applications, a meter bottom driver 201 corresponds to a meter 206, and each meter bottom driver 201 can implement different functions, such as connection function, query function, operation function, and the like.

In the method provided by the embodiment of the present invention, before performing the step 510 of the foregoing embodiment, the instrument underlay driver 201 needs to be separately written for each meter 206, and then an upper meter abstraction driver 202 is formed by encapsulation based on all the instrument underlayer drivers 201. The instrument abstract driver 202 includes a plurality of instrument driving function interfaces for implementing a single function, and each instrument driving function interface realizes a single Features such as connection, query, or setup.

Optionally, as shown in FIG. 6 , it is a schematic flowchart of another method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention. On the basis of the foregoing embodiment shown in FIG. 5, the method provided in this embodiment may further include: before each step 206, each instrument 206 separately writes an underlying driver of the instrument, wherein the implementation manner of writing the underlying driver of the instrument is:

Step 500: Define an underlying instrument state scan function in each instrument underlying driver, and the underlying instrument state scan function in all instrument underlying drivers adopt the same name; wherein the underlying instrument state scan function is used to perform instrument state scanning, for example For the API-meter status scan function;

Step 501: Define an instrument state scan function having the same name as the underlying instrument state scan function in the instrument abstract driver, and the instrument state scan function with the same name is used to call the underlying instrument state scan function in each instrument underlying driver.

The method provided by the embodiment of the present invention not only needs to define an underlying instrument state scanning function for each meter in the instrument underlying driver 201, but also needs to define other underlying single function functions. Therefore, it is necessary to standardize the underlying single function and the instrumentation function interface of the instrument abstraction driver 202 that calls these underlying single function functions; wherein the instrument driver function interface generally refers to the instrument abstraction driver 202, and the instrument underlying driver 201 The defined underlying instrument state scan function interfaces with the instrument driver function of the same name. The instrument state scan function in the instrument abstraction driver 202 defined in step 501 is one of the meter drive function interfaces. In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the meter abstraction driver 202 includes a plurality of single-function API-meter-driven function interfaces, each of which encapsulates the same function of each meter-based driver 201 in each meter-driven function interface - the underlying single The function function, and in the underlying driver 201 of the instrument, the names of the respective underlying single function functions corresponding to the instrument driving function interface are the same, and the names of the interfaces of the instrument driving function are the same.

Optionally, as shown in FIG. 7, another schematic flowchart of a method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention is provided. On the basis of the embodiment shown in FIG. 5, after the instrumentation agent 203 is started, in step 520, the corresponding instrument connection interface in the instrument abstraction driver is invoked according to each instrument address, and the instrument connection interface and the corresponding instrument are invoked. To perform the connection and maintain the connection state, the following steps may be included, that is, steps 521 to 524:

Step 521, the instrument agent invokes the instrument connection interface in the instrument abstract driver, and transmits the instrument address to the instrument connection interface;

Step 522: After determining the address type of the instrument address, the meter connection interface calls the corresponding communication protocol library to cycle through the underlying connection function in each instrument underlying driver.

In this embodiment, the instrument connection interface takes the instrument address as a parameter, first determines the legality of the instrument address, and then uses the instrument address as a parameter to sequentially call the underlying connection function in each instrument underlying driver 201; after step 522 ,Also includes:

Step 523, when the connection function called to the underlying driver of a certain instrument returns successfully, the round robin is terminated, the instrument abstraction drive records the underlying driver of the current round of the instrument, and the instrument connection interface connection function of the instrument abstraction drive returns successfully;

In step 524, when the underlying connection function of all the underlying drivers of the instrument returns to fail, the meter connection interface driven by the meter abstraction fails to return, and the user is reminded to check whether the meter address is correctly filled.

In an optional embodiment of the present invention, the method further includes:

After the connection is established, the underlying driver 201 of the meter sends a special instruction that can be recognized only by the corresponding meter to the meter 206 by calling the corresponding underlying function of the meter to see whether the connected meter can correctly respond. If the response is correct, the connected meter 206 is The underlying driver 201 of the meter matches and returns successfully; if the response fails, it indicates that the connected meter 206 does not match the underlying driver 201 of the meter, releases the connection and resources with the meter, and returns to failure. Write all meter addresses to be connected to the configuration file or database. After the connection is successful, when the other instrument driver function interface is called, the instrument driver function interface automatically calls the underlying function function of the same name in the instrument underlying driver 201 object recorded previously.

Optionally, as shown in FIG. 8 , a schematic flowchart of a method for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention is provided. On the basis of the foregoing embodiment shown in FIG. 5, in step 530 of the embodiment, the meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter according to the instruction received from the client and the instrument driving function interface in the instrument abstract driving. The operation of the meter may include the following steps, that is, steps 531 to 532:

Step 531, the instrument agent stores the instruction received from the client into the communication queue, and the sub-process of the currently connected corresponding instrument parses the instruction to obtain the corresponding underlying function function of the instrument, and invokes the bottom layer of the instrument according to the instrument driving function interface in the instrument abstract driver. Function function

In step 532, the meter passes the returned result to the child process, and the child process saves the result to the receiving. Queue, the instrument agent returns the result to the client over a TCP connection.

In this embodiment, during the process in which the child process of the meter agent 203 is connected to the meter, the child process will call the underlying instrument state scan function to read the real-time status of the meter at a time interval of a custom time, and will obtain The status of the meter status is stored in the queue or database. An API for meter status scanning is defined in each meter bottom driver 201, and the underlying meter status scan function in all meter bottom drivers 201 has the same name, and an API of the same name is defined in the meter abstract driver 202 accordingly. Used to call the underlying instrument state scan function in the instrument underlying driver 201.

The instrumentation agent 203 and the meter abstraction driver 202 are in a calling relationship between the upper and lower levels. Meter agent 203 is responsible for generating and managing threads that are connected to client 204, as well as child processes that are connected to meter 206; each child process invokes meter abstraction driver 202 to send instructions to meter 206.

After the instrumentation agent 203 is started, the instrumentation agent 203 parses out all the instrument addresses in the configuration file or the database, and invokes the instrument connection interface of the instrument abstraction driver 202 by using multiple processes, wherein each sub-process corresponds to one instrument address, and the instrument address is used as the instrument address. The sub-process calls the parameter of the meter connection interface of the meter abstract driver 202; after the meter connection is successful, the child process does not end and maintains the connection state with the meter. The meaning of each instrument process corresponding to a meter address is: a sub-process is generated in units of each group of ports of the meter, thus forming {process-1: (meter ip1, port 1), process-2: (meter ip2, Correspondence between ports 2)...}.

In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the method of automatically controlling the meter may include:

Receiving an access request from the client 204 to access the at least one meter 206, according to the access request, the meter agent 203 creates a first thread that generates a service to the client 204;

Starting the meter agent 203, the meter agent 203 parses out the meter address of the at least one meter, generates at least one child process, and invokes the corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstraction driver 202 according to each of the meter addresses in each of the child processes. Connecting to the corresponding meter through the instrument connection interface invoked and maintaining the connection state;

The meter connection interface sends an instruction to the meter to obtain the working status information or the operation meter of the meter.

In an application scenario of the embodiment, the instrument automation control system can access multiple instruments, and supports multiple clients to separately control multiple instruments, as shown in FIG. 13, multiple client connections. In an automated control system of multiple meters, the method of automatically controlling the instrument may include:

In step 601, the client 204 transmits the meter connection request and the meter address of the meter to be connected to the meter agent 203. After the connection is successful, the command is sent to the meter agent 203.

Step 602, after receiving the meter connection request and the meter address from the client, the meter agent 203 calls the meter connection interface in the meter abstraction driver 202 as a parameter. When the meter connection interface returns successfully, it indicates that the meter has been established with the meter. The instrument agent 203 receives the instruction from the client, parses the corresponding instrument underlying function and its parameters, and then invokes the instrument driver function interface of the same name in the instrument abstraction driver 202, and passes the parsed parameters.

In step 603, the meter abstraction driver 202 firstly calls the underlying connection function in each instrument underlying driver 201 to perform matching.

Step 604, after matching the correct instrument underlay driver 201, the meter abstraction driver 202 only needs to respond to the meter agent 203 to invoke the meter driver function interface, and then invokes the underlying connection function of the same name in the instrument underlying driver 201, and passes the instrumentation agent from the instrument. 203 parameters.

In step 605, the underlying driver 201 executes the corresponding underlying function, and the underlying function calls the corresponding communication interface (drive) to send the corresponding instrument instruction to the meter, and the instrument returns the query result or performs the corresponding action after receiving the instruction.

Through the log record, you can see the instruction interaction between the instrument automation control system and the instrument, as well as the scan statistics of the current service type of the instrument. After the actual operation exceeds 24 hours, the result will be recorded. The output result is as follows:

FIG. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for automatically controlling a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention. The device provided in this embodiment includes:

The client request receiving module 209 is configured to: receive an access request from the client 204 to access the at least one meter, and start the meter proxy 203 according to the access request;

The meter agent 203 is configured to: parse out the meter address of the at least one meter received by the client request receiving module 209, invoke the corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstraction driver 202 according to each of the meter addresses, and connect through the called meter. The interface is connected to the corresponding meter and maintains the connection status;

The meter agent 203 is further configured to: obtain the operating status information of the corresponding meter or operate the meter according to the instruction received from the client 204 and the meter driving function interface in the meter abstraction driver 202.

In an optional embodiment of the present invention, the instrument agent 203 also supports the call, as shown in FIG. 2, which is a schematic structural diagram of another device for automatically controlling the instrument provided by the embodiment of the present invention. The apparatus provided in this embodiment may further include:

The switch matrix 207 is configured to connect the meter to the device under test, wherein the meter agent 203 implements line switching between the meter 206 and the device under test 208 by activating a separate thread or sub-process open control switch matrix 207.

In an optional embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, the apparatus for automatically controlling the meter provided by the embodiment may further include:

The underlying driver 201 of the meter is configured to: define an underlying instrument state scan function in each instrument underlayer driver 201, and use the same name for the underlying instrument state scan function in each instrument underlayer driver 201;

The meter abstraction driver 202 is configured to: define, in the meter abstraction driver 202, an instrument state scan function having the same name as the underlying instrument state scan function, the instrument state scan function for invoking the underlying instrument state scan in each instrument underlying driver 201 function.

In an alternative embodiment of the invention, the meter abstraction driver 202 can include:

The instrument address detecting module is configured to: instruct the meter connection interface to call the corresponding communication protocol library after determining the address type, and to cycle through the underlying connection function in each instrument underlying driver 201;

When the round-robin connection function of the underlying driver of the instrument is successfully returned, the round-robin is terminated, and the instrument abstraction driver 202 records the underlying driver 201 of the current round-robin. At this time, the instrument connection interface returns successfully;

When the underlying connection function of all the underlying drivers 201 of the instrument returns to failure, the instrument connection interface returns a failure.

FIG. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of an instrument agent in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention. The instrumentation agent 203 includes: an instrument switch matrix selection module 2031, an instrument sweep The module 2032 and the meter address forwarding module 2034 are depicted.

FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram showing the working principle of an instrument switch matrix selection module in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention. The meter switch matrix selection module 2031 is configured to control the switch matrix 207 to automatically switch the line between the meter 206 and the device under test 208 according to an internal algorithm and a switch matrix line mapping table indicating input and output connection address mapping relationships. In other words, after the meter switch matrix selection module 2031 determines that the connection switch between the set meter 206 and the switch matrix 207 is enabled - that is, allows the switch to be switched, the current state of the switch matrix 207 is read, and the switch matrix line map is queried. The instruction to control the switch matrix 207 to perform line switching (the selected switching line) is sent to the switch matrix 207 to implement automatic switching of the connection between the meter 206 and the device under test 208 to avoid manual line change.

The meter scanning module 2032 is configured to: when the current state of the meter 206 is determined to be "idle", the connection between the setting meter 206 and the switch matrix 207 is switched to enable - that is, permission to be switched.

All meter addresses are written in the configuration file, and the meter agent 203 supports reading the meter address in the configuration file. The meter address forwarding module 2033 is configured to: wait for receiving a new meter connection request from the client, invoke the meter connection interface in the meter abstraction driver 202, and input the meter address to the meter connection interface, and all the meter addresses in the configuration file. The corresponding meter remains connected.

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram showing the working principle of an instrument address forwarding module in an apparatus for automatically controlling an instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention. The instrument address forwarding module 2033 is responsible for the allocation and management of system resources by a main thread, and establishes a socket connection with each client in a multi-threaded manner, and adopts multi-threading in consideration of the client and the instrument agent 203. The connection pressure between the device and the processing efficiency of the instruction by the meter agent 203. After the client works, the meter address forwarding module 2033 automatically releases the connection thread and the socket connection resource with the client; and, maintains the meter 206 The connection between the two does not actively release the resources, that is, the multi-process is taken into consideration that the instrument agent 203 and the meter 206 will maintain a constant connection state. If multi-threading is used, the information blocking may not be solved, and the multi-process can achieve the maximum efficiency, and the instrument Connections between 206 include, but are not limited to, Ethernet, serial, and GPIB.

In the working state, the meter address forwarding module 2033 in the meter agent 203 establishes a mapping relationship between the connection sub-process corresponding to the meter address and the child thread connected to the client. The client transmits an instruction to the meter address forwarding module 2033 via TCP, and the meter address forwarding module 2033 deposits the instruction into the communication team. The column is obtained by the sub-process connected to the corresponding instrument, parsing the underlying function function of the instrument in the instruction, and calling the instrument driving function interface of the same name in the instrument abstraction driver 202; the result returned by the meter 206 is first passed to the instrument address forwarding module 2033. With the child process between the meter, the child process saves the result to the receiving queue, is obtained by the child thread connecting the corresponding client, and returns the result to the client 204 through the TCP connection.

In order to ensure that the connection between the meter address forwarding module 2033 and the meter 206 is normal, each child process periodically sends a keep-alive command to the meter 206 to confirm that the connection between the meter address forwarding module and the meter 206 is normal, and the keep-alive command can be a value 206. The simplest instruction supported by itself. Since the keep-alive commands that can be used by different meters 206 are not the same, the keep-alive function is also packaged into the instrument under-floor driver 201.

The meter scanning module 2032 shares a set of connection sub-processes with the meter 206 with the meter address forwarding module 2033. In addition to calling the meter abstraction driver 202, the child process also periodically scans the meter 206 to determine if the meter 206 is currently being used. The judgment basis may be different according to different meters 206, and the scan function of each meter 206 needs to be packaged into the respective instrument bottom layer driver 201, and uniformly named for the meter scanning module to call periodically. With the scan result, statistics can be made on the current and temporary usage rate of each meter 206, and the control of the switch matrix 207 can be combined to realize automatic switching between the idle meter and the device under test 208, which greatly improves Resource utilization of meter 206.

FIG. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of an automatic control system for a meter according to an embodiment of the present invention. The system for automatically controlling the instrument provided in this embodiment includes:

The client 204 is connected to the meter agent 203, and the client 204 is configured to: run a script;

The client request receiving module 209 is configured to: receive an access request from the client 204 to access the at least one meter 206, and start the meter agent 203 according to the access request;

The metering agent 203 is configured to: parse out the meter address of the at least one meter received by the client request receiving module 209, and invoke the corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstraction driver 202 according to each meter address, through the called meter connection interface and The corresponding meter 206 is connected and maintains the connection state;

The meter agent 203 is further configured to: according to instructions and meter abstractions received from the client 204 Driving the instrument driver function interface in 202, obtaining the working status information of the corresponding meter 206 or operating the meter 206;

The meter 206 is configured to be connected to the meter agent 203 through a communication interface.

The instrument automation system known in the related art cannot realize the automatic identification of the instrument type and the automatic matching between the instrument and the instrument driver. The advantage of using the technical solution adopted by the embodiment of the present invention is that the instrument underlying driving and the connected instrument can be realized. Automatic matching between the two; in the process of connecting with the meter, the system can periodically scan the working state of the meter and return the result to the system; the switch matrix is connected between the meter and the device under test, and the user can modify the configuration file or issue the corresponding command. It is possible to automatically switch the connection line between the meter and the device under test.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or a portion of the steps of the above-described embodiments can be implemented using a computer program flow, which can be stored in a computer readable storage medium on a corresponding hardware platform (according to The system, device, device, device, etc. are executed, and when executed, include one or a combination of the steps of the method embodiments.

Alternatively, all or part of the steps of the above embodiments may also be implemented by using an integrated circuit. These steps may be separately fabricated into individual integrated circuit modules, or multiple modules or steps may be fabricated into a single integrated circuit module. achieve.

The devices/function modules/functional units in the above embodiments may be implemented by a general-purpose computing device, which may be centralized on a single computing device or distributed over a network of multiple computing devices.

When the device/function module/functional unit in the above embodiment is implemented in the form of a software function module and sold or used as a stand-alone product, it can be stored in a computer readable storage medium. The above mentioned computer readable storage medium may be a read only memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk or the like.

Industrial applicability

In the embodiment of the present invention, the working status information or the operation instrument of each instrument is obtained by scanning each instrument connected to the instrument server, and the instrument abstraction driver and the packaged instrument connection interface thereof eliminate the difference of the underlying driving of each instrument. Therefore, the technical solution of the automatic control instrument provided by the embodiment of the invention does not need to know the type of the instrument in the application, and only needs to input the instrument address to realize automatic control of the instrument by calling the instrument abstract drive.

Claims

A method of automatically controlling a meter, comprising:

Receiving an access request of the client to access at least one meter, and starting the instrumentation agent according to the access request;

The meter agent parses out the meter address of the at least one meter, invokes a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, and connects with the corresponding meter through the called meter connection interface to maintain the connection status. ;

The meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the meter driving function interface in the meter abstract driving.
The method of claim 1 wherein

The meter is connected to the device under test using a switch matrix that controls the switch matrix to switch the line between the meter and the device under test by initiating a separate thread or sub-process.
The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: before receiving the access request of the client to access the at least one meter, the method further comprising:

An underlying instrument state scan function is defined in each instrument underlying driver, and the underlying instrument state scan function in each of the instrument underlying drivers has the same name;

An instrument state scan function having the same name as the underlying meter state scan function is defined in the meter abstract driver, and the meter state scan function is used to call an underlying meter state scan function in each of the meter underlying drivers.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the meter agent invokes a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, and connects with the corresponding meter through the called meter connection interface to maintain the connection status. ,include:

The meter agent invokes the meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver, and transmits the meter address to the meter connection interface;

After determining the address type of the instrument address, the meter connection interface invokes a corresponding communication protocol library to cycle through the underlying connection function in each instrument underlying driver;

When the round-robin to the underlying connection function of the underlying driver of the meter returns successfully, the round-robin is terminated, and the meter abstraction drive records the underlying driver of the current round-robin, and the meter connection interface returns successfully;

The instrument connection interface returns a failure when the underlying connection function that rotates all of the underlying drivers of the instrument returns a failure.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the meter driving function interface in the meter abstract driving. include:

The meter agent stores the instruction received from the client into the communication queue, and the sub-process of the currently connected corresponding meter parses the instruction to obtain a corresponding underlying function function of the meter, according to the instrument driving function in the instrument abstract driver The interface calls the underlying function of the meter;

The meter passes the returned result to the child process, the child process saves the result to a receive queue, and the meter agent returns the result to the client via a Transmission Control Protocol TCP connection.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the meter agent obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter according to the instruction received from the client and the meter driving function interface in the meter abstract driving. Also includes:

During the process of maintaining the connection state between the child process of the meter agent and the meter, the sub-process calls the underlying instrument state scan function to read the working state information of the meter in real time, and obtains the obtained information. The working status information of the meter is stored in the queue or database.
An apparatus for automatically controlling a meter, comprising:

The client request receiving module is configured to: receive an access request of the client to access the at least one meter, and start the meter proxy according to the access request;

The meter agent is configured to: parse out the meter address of the at least one meter received by the client request receiving module, and invoke a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, by using the called meter The connection interface is connected with the corresponding meter and maintains the connection state;

The meter agent is further configured to: according to the instruction received from the client and the instrument abstraction The instrument drive function interface in the drive obtains the working status information of the corresponding meter or operates the meter.
The apparatus of claim 7 further comprising:

A switch matrix is configured to: connect the meter to a device under test, and the meter agent controls the switch matrix to switch a line between the meter and the device under test by initiating a separate thread or sub-process.
The apparatus of claim 7 further comprising:

The underlying driver of the instrument is set to: define an underlying instrument state scanning function in each instrument underlying driver, and the underlying instrument state scanning function in each of the instrument underlying drivers adopts the same name;

An instrument abstraction driver is configured to: define, in the meter abstract driver, an instrument state scan function having the same name as the underlying meter state scan function, the gauge state scan function for calling the bottom layer of each of the instrument underlying drivers Instrument status scan function.
The apparatus of claim 9 wherein said meter agent comprises:

The meter address forwarding module is configured to: invoke the meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver, and transmit the meter address to the meter connection interface;

The instrument abstract driver includes:

The instrument address detecting module is configured to: instruct the meter connection interface to call the corresponding communication protocol library after determining the address type, and to cycle through the bottom layer connection function in each instrument underlying driver;

When the round-robin to the underlying connection function of the underlying driver of the meter returns successfully, the round-robin is terminated, and the meter abstraction drive records the underlying driver of the current round-robin, and the meter connection interface returns successfully;

The instrument connection interface returns a failure when the underlying connection function that rotates all of the underlying drivers of the instrument returns a failure.
A system for automatically controlling instruments, including:

a client, connected to the meter agent, the client is set to: run a script;

The client requests the receiving module, and is set to: receive the access of the client to access at least one meter Requesting, starting the meter agent according to the access request;

The meter agent is configured to: parse out a meter address of the at least one meter received by the client request receiving module, and invoke a corresponding meter connection interface in the meter abstract driver according to each of the meter addresses, by calling The instrument connection interface is connected with the corresponding instrument and maintains the connection state;

The meter agent is further configured to: obtain an operation status information of the corresponding meter or operate the meter according to an instruction received from the client and an instrument driving function interface in the instrument abstract driving;

The meter is set to be connected to the instrument agent through a communication interface.