Configuration system and control system for a process plant having an integrated process control and safety systems.

摘要

A control system for a process plant contains physically and logically integrated process control and safety control systems. The systems are such that they can use common communication, configuration hardware and software within the plant while providing functional isolation between the safety and process control system controllers. The integrated system uses a common data communication structure for both safety and process control, so that the configuration application can send data to and receive data from devices in either system in the same manner. The common data communication structure is set up to distinguish process control from safety system devices using tags, address or other fields within the messages sent to or received from the devices, which enables process control data and safety data to be distinguished. The configuration application within a user interface can automatically treat the data appropriately depending on the source or destination of the data. The application may have user accounts with individual access privileges for the separate user entities.