Continuous equipment operation in an automated control environment

摘要

Continuous equipment operation is facilitated despite disablement of an automation controller for controlling the equipment. A safe state in which equipment is to be maintained upon disablement of the automation controller is determined. Safe state data is provided for configuring an I/O module, through which the automation controller controls the equipment, with the safe state data to facilitate maintaining the equipment in the safe state during disablement of the automation controller. In one embodiment, upon subsequent enablement of the automation controller, a current state of the I/O module is evaluated and an automatic control state into which the equipment is to be transitioned is determined. The equipment is then transitioned to the determined automatic control state.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
determining a safe state in which equipment is to be maintained upon disablement of an automation controller, the automation controller configured to control the equipment by providing commands to an I/O module to control the equipment, the automation controller being a separate component from the I/O module; and prior to a disablement of the automation controller in which control of the equipment by the automation controller is lost, performing:
configuring the I/O module with safe state data to facilitate maintaining, by the I/O module, the equipment in the safe state upon disablement of the automation controller in which control of the equipment by the automation controller is lost; andconfiguring the I/O module to provide one or more signals, based on the safe state data, to the equipment upon disablement of the automation controller and loss of control of the equipment by the automation controller, wherein the configuring the I/O module with the safe state data and the configuring the I/O module to provide the one or more signals facilitates continuous equipment operation upon disablement of the automation controller despite the loss of control of the equipment by the automation controller during the disablement of the automation controller.