FISHER-ROSEMOUNT SYSTEMS, INC.

A gateway system securely delivers and exposes data generated by and/or related to a process plant for consumption by external systems, and includes an edge-facing component that receives process plant-related data from a process plant via a field-facing component of the system. The received data may comport with an exposable data type system utilizing a syntax known to the external systems. The edge-facing component stores the received data in a data lake, and mines the data lake to thereby discover relationships between stored data points. Indications of the received data and the discovered interrelationships are stored in a contextualized process plant knowledge repository, such as a graph database, that is accessible to the external systems and other systems and applications via one or more access mechanisms, which may include utilities, services, servers, and/or applications. Some of the access mechanisms allow external applications to be installed at the edge-facing component.

Process knowledge creation, development, and management techniques allow for and enable the creation of a universal process definition (UPD) of an industrial process, the automatic conversion or transformation of the UPD into different site-specific process definitions, and the implementation of the site-specific process definitions at different manufacturing, production, and/or automation sites. Typically, the UPD is site- and equipment-agnostic, and the transformation may generate and provide a set of site-specific process definition implementation files or routines to configure and/or govern the behavior of various site-specific execution systems, e.g., as site-specific operational instances of the UPD. The techniques may utilize feedback and information generated by site-specific operational instances to generate learned knowledge and update the UPD accordingly so that subsequent instantiations of the UPD may incorporate (and reap the benefits of) the learned knowledge. The techniques may automatically select a most suitable site for a particular instantiation of the UPD.

A process control system includes one or more field devices positioned in a process control plant and a control module configured to generate control signals for controlling the one or more field devices. The control module may be configured to operate on one or more internal parameters to execute a control strategy. A control module software interface may be configured to define a set of interface parameters based on a strategy type associated with the control strategy of the control module. Each interface parameter of the set of interface parameters may be linked to one of the one or more internal parameters of the control module. Additionally, each interface parameter may be accessible by other control modules and/or other external applications.

A process plant and industrial control system architecture includes a generalized compute fabric that is agnostic or indifferent to the physical location at which the compute fabric is implemented, includes one or more physical control or field devices located at one or more specific sites at which a product or process is being manufactured and further includes a transport network that securely provides communications between the compute fabric and the pool of physical devices. The compute fabric includes an application layer that includes configured containers or containerized software modules that perform various control, monitoring and configuration activities with respect to one or more devices, control strategies and control loops, sites, plants, or facilities at which control is performed, and includes a physical layer including computer processing and data storage equipment that can be located at any desired location, including at or near a site, plant, or facility at which control is being performed, at a dedicated location away from the location at which control is being performed, in re-assignable computer equipment provided in the cloud, or any combination thereof. This control architecture enables significant amounts of both computer processing and IT infrastructure that is used to support a process plant, an industrial control facility or other automation facility to be implemented in a shared, in an offsite and/or in a virtualized manner that alleviates many of the communications and security issues present in current process and industrial control systems that attempt to implement control with shared or virtualized computing resources set up according to the well-known Purdue model. The industrial control system architecture is protected via more secure and customizable techniques as compared to those used in Purdue model-based control systems. For example, communications between any (and in some cases, all) endpoints of the system may be protected via one or more virtual private networks to which authenticated endpoints must be authorized to access. Endpoints may include, for example, containerized components, physical components, devices, sites or locations, the compute fabric, and the like, and the VPNs may include mutually-exclusive and/or nested VPNs. External applications and services, whether automated or executing under the purview of a person, may access information and services provided by the system via only APIs, and different sets of APIs may be exposed to different users that have been authenticated and authorized to access respective sets of APIs. A configuration system operates within the compute fabric to enable a user to easily make configuration changes to the compute fabric as the user does not generally need to specify the computer hardware within the compute fabric to use to make the configuration changes, making it possible for the user to deploy new configuration elements with simple programming steps, and in some cases with the push of a button.

A method includes receiving at a field device, from a first client device or application, a message indicating a selection of a first one of a plurality of publish categories corresponding to a type of information desired by the first client device or application. The method further includes transmitting, from the field device to the first client device or application, an identification of each of a plurality of publish lists corresponding to the first one of the selected publish category. The publish lists are stored on the field device and each includes a set of parameters associated with the field device. The method includes receiving at the field device, from the first client device or application, a selection of a publish list identified by the field device, and transmitting, from the field device to the first client device or application, the set of parameters associated with the selected publish list.

An I/O server service interfaces with multiple containerized controller services each implementing the same control routine to control the same portion of the same plant. The I/O server service may provide the same controller inputs to each of the containerized controller services (e.g., representing measurements obtained by field devices and transmitted by the field devices to the I/O server service). Each containerized controller service executes the same control routine to generate a set of controller outputs. The I/O server service receives each set of controller outputs and forwards an “active” set to the appropriate field devices. The I/O server service may utilize a quality-of-service metric to determine which controller outputs and/or I/O channel is “active.” The I/O server service and other services, such as an orchestrator service, may continuously evaluate performance and resource utilization in the control system, and may dynamically activate and deactivate controller services as appropriate.

A process control or automation system comprising a plurality of instantiated micro-encapsulated execution environments (MEEEs) includes a first one or more instantiated MEEEs communicatively connecting a provider of the plurality of instantiated MEEEs to a first enterprise operating a first one or more industrial or automation processes at a first one or more physical locations or sites. The system also includes a second one or more instantiated MEEEs communicatively connecting the provider to a second enterprise operating a second one or more industrial or automation processes at a second one or more physical locations or sites.

An I/O server service interacts with multiple containerized controller services each implementing the same control routine to control the same portion of the same plant. The I/O server service may provide the same controller inputs to each of the containerized controller services (e.g., representing measurements obtained by field devices and transmitted by the field devices to the I/O server service). Each containerized controller service executes the same control routine to generate a set of controller outputs. The I/O server service receives each set of controller outputs and forwards an “active” set to the appropriate field devices. The I/O server service and other services, such as an orchestrator service, may continuously evaluate performance and resource utilization in the control system, and may dynamically activate and deactivate controller services as appropriate.

A process control system includes a plurality of field devices operating to control a process. A communication infrastructure couples the field devices to a software-defined control system (SDCS) that receives data from the field devices and transmits instructions to the field devices. A data cluster, executing the SDCS, includes a plurality of computing nodes, each of which includes a processor executing an operating system, a memory, and a communication resource coupled to one or more other computing nodes in the data cluster. First and second containers, each of which is an isolated execution environment, are instantiated on a first computing node within the operating system of the first computing node. The second container is instantiated within the first container. The first and second containers correspond to levels of a hierarchical structure of the SDCS.

A process control or automation system configured to control a plurality of process control or automation field devices in a process, includes a compute fabric executing a plurality of instantiated micro-encapsulated execution environments (MEEEs) that cooperate to control the process. Each of the plurality of field devices operates to sense a parameter of the process and output the sensed parameter of the process to an input of the compute fabric and/or to affect a parameter of the process according to an input received from the compute fabric. The system also includes a plurality of digital twin services, each instantiated as one or more of the plurality of instantiated MEEEs, each having an associated one or group of field devices, and each operable to mimic non-physical operation of the one or group of field devices.