| 摘要 |
The present invention is concerned with an Industrial Automation and Control System (IACS) for an industrial process with a process or primary structure including several neighbouring zones connected via a connecting, or boundary, primary device or element. The IACS includes a number of communicatively interconnected Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), wherein low-level, or process-level, IEDs interact with and are assigned to primary devices of the industrial process, and wherein several high-level, or system-level, IEDs implement and execute high-level functions on behalf of the several zones. The IACS includes a logical communication link between the two high-level IEDs for bypassing the connecting IED in case of communicative unavailability or complete failure of the latter. The communication link enables to transmit or exchange, between the high-level IEDs, summarized or pre-processed process information including data and signals originating from one or more low-level IEDs of a first of the zones and relevant for a high-level function on behalf of some other zones. This reduces the communication load at the higher level function and in the communication network while maintaining an availability level comparable to a completely central solution. |
