Importance

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Abstract

The system and method of industrial automation provides improved network transfer of data between nodes. The system comprises a plurality of computer systems which are interconnected through a network, wherein each of the computer systems executes industrial automation software. One or more of these computer systems interface to various hardware I/O devices for data acquisition. Each computer system is home to one or more client and/or server processes. When a hardware I/O device generates data, a server process which is linked to that device through a device driver receives a block of data from the device. Using a real-time protocol, the server adds one or more blocks of data to a packet and transmits the packet to every client which has subscribed to the data. For increased network and computational efficiency, the real-time protocol includes compression techniques and is exception-based: only changes in data are sent to clients. The real-time protocol further employs a 'train station' model for packet generation: a packet is only sent when it reaches a certain size or when a certain time has elapsed. The server determines if a plurality of clients are interested in at least a subset of the same data; if so, the server generates a multi-cast packet which comprises compressed data element values that are desired by each of the plurality of clients.

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First Claim