Gateway and method for transforming a description of an industrial process equipment into a data information model

Abstract

Modern industrial processes demand flexibility in terms of how data flows are structured in an automation pyramid. Instead of only upward and downward flows, the data should be accessible directly at each level of the pyramid. A gateway for facilitating an integration of process equipment within an industrial environment supporting an open industry standard is provided. Field devices having characteristics, capabilities and/or requirements that are expressed by a description language for industrial process equipment such as EDDL are integrated into a contemporary communication environment enabling a direct data access. The communication environment is operated based on a semantically enriched and graph-based data information model such as provided by OPC UA.

1 . A gateway for transforming a description of an industrial process equipment into a semantically enriched and graph-based data information model for automation purposes, the gateway including:
 a parsing module configured to:
 parse information entities in the description of the industrial process equipment by a field communication protocol; 
 transform the parsed information entities into declarative logic facts; and 
 assert the declarative logic facts within a deductive database; 
   a knowledge engine configured to apply mapping rules to the declarative logic facts using a mapping knowledge base, wherein the declarative logic facts are deductively mapped onto the graph-based data information model; and   an interface module configured to access the graph-based data object model.   
     
     
         2 . The gateway of  claim 1 , wherein the semantically enriched and graph-based data information model is an OPC UA information model. 
     
     
         3 . The gateway of  claim 2 , wherein the knowledge engine is configured to apply a mapping rule for creating an OPC UA Base Node Class using attributes taken from a corresponding variable in the description of the industrial process equipment. 
     
     
         4 . The gateway of  claim 2 , wherein the knowledge engine is configured to apply a mapping rule is applied for creating an OPC UA Object node by referencing corresponding attributes in the description of the industrial process equipment including a manufacturer identification, a device type, a device revision, and a device description revision. 
     
     
         5 . The gateway of  claim 1 , wherein the description of the industrial process equipment is expressed by an electronic device description language (EDDL), a field device tool (FDT)/device type manager (DTM) protocol, a general station description (GSD), or an TO device description. 
     
     
         6 . The gateway of  claim 1 , wherein the interface module is a gateway-internal OPC UA server. 
     
     
         7 . The gateway of  claim 1 , wherein the knowledge engine is a Datalog engine. 
     
     
         8 . The gateway of  claim 7 , wherein the knowledge engine, the parsing module, and the Datalog engine are substantially integrated within one functional unit. 
     
     
         9 . The gateway of  claim 1 , wherein the field communication protocol is a highway addressable remote transducer (HART) protocol. 
     
     
         10 . The gateway of  claim 1 , further comprising at least one equipment interface for connecting at least one industrial process equipment. 
     
     
         11 . A method for transforming a description of an industrial process equipment into a semantically enriched and graph-based data information model for automation purposes, the method comprising:
 parsing information entities in the description of the industrial process equipment by a field communication protocol;   transforming the parsed information entities into declarative logic facts;   asserting the declarative logic facts within a deductive database;   applying mapping rules to the declarative logic facts using a mapping knowledge base, wherein the declarative logic facts are deductively mapped onto the graph-based data information model; and   providing, by an interface module, the graph-based data object model.