JP7752563B2 - Software distribution system, software update plan creation system, and software update plan creation method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a software distribution system, a software update plan creation system, and a software update plan creation method.

There is a technology (Patent Document 1) that allows software updates for industrial robot control devices used in factories to be performed efficiently remotely over a network, without the need for manual ROM replacement. Because the equipment operates based on a work plan, software updates must be carried out without affecting this plan. Patent Document 2 shows a technology that uses control schedule information for the control devices of equipment within a building to predict time periods when the equipment can be shut down.

Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-263125 JP 2015-191502 A

Software updates for equipment used in industrial locations such as factories and logistics centers should generally be carried out in a planned manner based on a work plan. However, there may also be situations where unplanned but prompt software updates are required, such as the application of emergency security patches or important functional improvements. One method for creating an update plan is to reference the equipment's operation plan and extract non-operational times, but it must be taken into account that devices are related to each other in the order of upstream and downstream processes according to the work process.

Patent Document 2 provides a method for estimating the time when equipment can be stopped based on control schedule information and the coordination between equipment. However, the coordination between equipment in Patent Document 2 refers to coordination between equipment that can operate independently, and furthermore, it acts as a kind of switch, where the operation of one piece of equipment triggers the operation of another piece of equipment. There is no sequential relationship, such as downstream work processes at industrial sites requiring the completion of upstream processes, and the time spans considered are different. Furthermore, while it may be possible to create a plan manually if there are only a few pieces of equipment involved, this is not realistic when a large number of pieces of equipment are involved.

The object of this invention is to create a software update plan in a software distribution system without affecting the work plan.

One aspect of the present invention is a software distribution system that distributes software applicable to industrial equipment to the industrial equipment via a communications network. The system includes: a storage unit that stores the software and meta-information about the software; a configuration management unit that stores configuration information about the software applied to the industrial equipment; a software distribution unit that compares the configuration information with the meta-information, extracts software that is newly applicable to the industrial equipment, and distributes the software to the industrial equipment; and an update plan creation unit that extracts software distribution timings that do not affect the work plan based on the work plan and information about the relationship between the industrial equipment. The software distribution unit distributes the software to the industrial equipment at the distribution timings.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a software update plan can be created in a software distribution system without affecting the work plan.

1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a software update plan creation system according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of information used as meta information of software. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the relationship between processes when manufacturing a certain product as an example of a work process. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of information expressing the relationship between a work process and a device in charge. 10 is a flowchart showing an operation of the software update plan creation system when creating an update plan. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a screen when a list of updatable software is displayed on a display terminal together with the created update plan. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a hardware configuration of a software distribution system.

One embodiment of the present invention will be described below using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a software update planning system according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which the system is targeted at an industrial robot.
The software update planning system shown in FIG. 1 is a system for determining an update plan for unplanned and highly important software used within robot control devices 25A and 25B that control robot bodies 26A and 26B, and includes a software distribution system 21 and a process management system 22.

The software distribution system 21 is connected to a software registration terminal 23, a display terminal 24, a process management system 22, and a robot control device 25 via a network. While these networks are typically different, they may be the same network.

The software distribution system 21 has a memory unit 211, an update plan creation unit 212, a software distribution unit 213, a configuration management unit 214, and a communication unit 215.

The memory unit 211 has a software DB 2111 that stores software and a software meta information DB 2112 that stores meta information for the software DB 2111. The configuration management unit 214 acquires and manages software configuration information applied to the robot control device 25 via the communication unit 215.

The software distribution unit 213 has the function of extracting software that can be applied to the robot control device 25 based on information obtained from the memory unit 211 and software configuration information stored in the configuration management unit 214, and the function of distributing the extracted software to the robot control device 25. The update plan creation unit 212 creates an update plan for unplanned and highly important software from the software information extracted by the software distribution unit 213.

The update plan creation unit 212 has a delivery timing extraction unit 2121 and an equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122. The equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122 acquires from the process management system 22 a work plan including information on the schedule of work processes and the connections between the work processes, and equipment work allocation information indicating the allocation of industrial equipment to the work processes, interprets the equipment relationships between industrial equipment based on the work processes, and extracts related information between industrial equipment based on the equipment relationships. The delivery timing extraction unit 2121 extracts the delivery timing of the software based on the work plan and the related information between industrial equipment.

The software meta-information DB2112 holds information about software registered in the software DB2111. Figure 2 shows an example of information used as software meta-information.

As shown in Figure 2, the meta information includes information such as the software name and version, as well as the estimated time required for the update and distribution type information. Here, distribution type information indicates whether the software distribution is planned or unplanned, as well as information such as importance, and in the case of a planned update, information on the update date and time is also included.

After extracting software applicable to the robot control device 25, the software distribution unit 213 sends this information to the distribution timing extraction unit 2121 included in the update plan creation unit 212. The configuration management unit 214 holds the configuration information necessary for the operation of the software distribution unit 213. There are several possible methods for obtaining this information, such as periodically issuing a request to the robot control device 25 to obtain configuration information, or the robot control device 25 periodically sending configuration information to the configuration management unit 214.

The distribution timing extraction unit 2121 presents the applicable software information received from the software distribution unit 213 on the display terminal 24 and requests permission for distribution from the user. However, if the applicable software information includes software whose software distribution type information is unplanned and is of high importance, it executes an extraction program for the software's update timing.

After executing the software update timing extraction program, the delivery timing extraction unit 2121 requests work plan information from the process management system 22. This work plan information contains a variety of information related to the work. Figure 3 is a diagram showing the relationship between processes when manufacturing a certain product as an example of a work process.

As shown in FIG. 3, for example, in a manufacturing site where industrial robots are used, the schedule for each step in the manufacturing process for a product and the connections between the steps are shown.
It is necessary to assign a robot to work in each process, but the same robot is not always assigned to the same process due to reasons such as maintenance. For this reason, information describing the allocation of manufacturing processes and working robots is required, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4 is a diagram showing an example of information that expresses the relationship between work processes and the equipment in charge.

The equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122 obtains information and work plans regarding the allocation of work and robots from the process management system 22, interprets the relationships between equipment in each manufacturing process along with their sequential order, and provides this to the delivery timing extraction unit 2121. Here, sequential order refers to the upstream-downstream relationship between processes; for example, in Figure 3, since process 2 cannot start until process 1 is finished, it can be said that processes 1 and 2 are sequentially related.

The process control system 22 holds information related to work processes, including the work plans and information related to the allocation of work processes and equipment, as already mentioned. The process control system 22 is connected to the software distribution system 21 via a network, and can synchronize information of specified content in response to a request from the software distribution system 21 or periodically.

In this embodiment, the software to be updated is the software included in the robot control device 25. When updating the software, the robot control device 25 must be stopped, and therefore the robot main body 26 cannot be controlled.

However, because the robot bodies 26 cannot be stopped during work periods in the work plan maintained by the process control system 22, the update work must be carried out at a time that will not affect the work. Furthermore, there are relationships between the robot bodies 26 based on the order of the processes, and the update plan must be established taking into account these relationships between the robot bodies 26.

The software update plan creation process in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
First, in step 700 , the software distribution unit 213 acquires, from the software meta-information DB 2112 in the storage unit 21 , information on software that has been registered in advance in the software DB 2111 via the software registration terminal 23 .

Furthermore, the software distribution unit 213 obtains configuration information for the software applied to the robot control device 25 from the configuration management unit 214, compares it with the software and its version information contained in the obtained software meta-information, and determines whether there is any new software that can be applied to the robot control device 25. Then, information about the applicable software is sent to the distribution timing extraction unit 2121 contained in the update plan creation unit 212.

In step 701, the distribution timing extraction unit 2121 searches the software information applicable to the robot control device 25 obtained from the software distribution unit 213 in step 700 to determine whether the meta information contains unplanned and highly important software.

In step 702, if the search results in step 701 indicate that unplanned and highly important software is included, the delivery timing extraction unit 2121 requests information on the work plan, work process, and robot allocation from the process management system 22.

In step 703, the update plan creation unit 212 obtains work plans, work processes, and robot allocation information from the process management system 22. The equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122 uses this information to extract the relationships between robots along with the upstream and downstream order of the process, and transmits this to the distribution timing extraction unit 2121.

In step 704, the delivery timing extraction unit 2121 extracts delivery timings using the work plan obtained from the process management system 22 and information regarding the relationships between equipment obtained from the equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122.

Here, at least two conditions must be met for a candidate delivery time. The first is that the downtime must be longer than the time required for the software update, and the second is that there must be no impact on the work plan. The time required for the software update, which is the first condition, can be determined using the estimated time required for the update contained in the software meta information DB2112. Here, the estimated time required for the update is, for example, the time required to install the software.

In addition, assuming that the update fails, the time required for the software update may be the sum of the time required for the software update and the time required to restore the system to its pre-update state, or a margin may be added to this.

There are various possible algorithms for satisfying the second condition of not affecting the work plan, but the simplest is to select the time period after all work on related equipment has been completed as a candidate. Alternatively, the time immediately after work on each process has been completed may be selected as a candidate, or the time from the start of the first process on related equipment until work on that equipment begins may be selected as a candidate. If there is no time that satisfies these two conditions, the delivery timing extraction unit 2121 displays information on the display terminal 24 that there are no candidates.

In step 705, the results of the software distribution time extraction performed by the distribution time extraction unit 2121 are displayed on the display terminal 24. Then, it is determined whether any of the displayed candidates is an acceptable date and time.

Figure 6 shows an example of a screen displayed on the display terminal 24 when a list of updatable software is displayed together with the created update plan. This differs from Figure 2 in that candidate dates are listed in the update schedule/available time column for unplanned and highly important software B.

As a result of the extraction, there may be one candidate delivery time, or there may be multiple candidates. The priority for displaying the candidate delivery times on the display terminal 24 may be, for example, in order of earliest start time or earliest end time. Alternatively, the priority may be determined based on evaluation criteria specified by the system user.

If it is determined in step 705 that an acceptable date and time is found among the displayed candidates, then in step 706 the system user determines the delivery time based on the results displayed on the display terminal 24. The delivery time extraction unit 2121 transmits the delivery time selected by the system user to the software delivery unit 213. The software delivery unit 213 delivers the software to the robot control device 25 at the selected delivery time.

If it is determined in step 705 that there are no acceptable dates and times among the displayed candidates, the user considers changing the production plan (work plan) in step 707.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the hardware configuration of the software distribution system 21 shown in FIG.
7 is, for example, an information processing device 10. The information processing device 10 includes, for example, a processor 11, a main memory device 12, an auxiliary memory device 13, an input device 14, an output device 15, and a communication device 16. These are connected to each other so as to be able to communicate with each other via communication means such as a bus (not shown).

The processor 11 is configured using, for example, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and an MPU (Micro Processing Unit). The processor 11 realizes various functions of the software distribution system 21 by reading and executing programs stored in the main memory device 12. The main memory device 12 is a device that stores programs and data, and is, for example, ROM (Read Only Memory), RAM (Random Access Memory), and non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVRAM (Non Volatile RAM)).

The auxiliary storage device 13 may be, for example, a hard disk drive, a solid state drive (SSD), an optical storage device (such as a compact disc (CD) or a digital versatile disc (DVD)), an IC card, or an SD memory card. A storage system or a cloud server may also be used as the auxiliary storage device 13. The auxiliary storage device 13 stores programs and data. The programs and data stored in the auxiliary storage device 13 are loaded into the main storage device 12 as needed.

The input device 14 is composed of, for example, a keyboard, mouse, touch panel, card reader, and audio input device. The input device 14 accepts various information from users who use the software distribution system 21. The output device 15 provides the user with various information such as processing progress and results. The output device 15 is composed of, for example, a screen display device (such as a liquid crystal monitor, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), and graphics card), an audio output device (such as a speaker), and a printer.

The communication device 16 is a wired or wireless communication interface that enables communication with other devices via communication means such as a LAN or the Internet, and is configured using, for example, a NIC (Network Interface Card), a wireless communication module, a USB (Universal Serial Interface) module, and a serial communication module.

In the above embodiment, the update plan creation unit 212 has an equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122 and a delivery timing extraction unit 2121. The equipment relationship interpretation unit 2122 acquires from the process management system 22 a work plan including information on the schedule of work processes and the connections between work processes, and equipment work allocation information indicating the allocation of industrial equipment to work processes, interprets the equipment relationships between industrial equipment based on the work processes, and extracts related information between industrial equipment based on the equipment relationships.

However, the present invention is not limited to this. An external medium storing work plans and association information between industrial equipment may be prepared in advance, and the distribution timing extraction unit 2121 may acquire the work plans and association information between industrial equipment from the external medium. In this case, the equipment association interpretation unit 2122 is not required. Here, the external medium is, for example, a USB memory that can be inserted into the information processing device 10 that constitutes the software distribution system 21.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 1, in the above embodiment, the software distribution system 21 is composed of a memory unit 211, an update plan creation unit 212, a software distribution unit 213, a configuration management unit 214, and a communication unit 215. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the memory unit 211 may be installed on the cloud side. In this case, the software distribution system 21 is composed of the update plan creation unit 212, the software distribution unit 213, the configuration management unit 214, and the communication unit 215, and the software distribution system 21 and the memory unit 211 installed on the cloud side are connected via a network.

Furthermore, while the above embodiment has been described using an industrial robot in a factory as an example, the present invention is not limited to this and can be widely applied to equipment used in industrial bases such as logistics centers.

The above embodiment provides a means for creating a software update plan that takes into account the relationship between the work plan and the order of the equipment processes.

21 Software distribution system 22 Process management system 23 Software registration terminal 24 Display terminal 25 Robot control device 26 Robot body 211 Storage unit 212 Update plan creation unit 213 Software distribution unit 214 Configuration management unit 215 Communication unit 2111 Software DB
2112 Software Meta Information DB
2121 Delivery timing extraction unit 2122 Device relevance interpretation unit

Claims (12)

A software distribution system that distributes software to be applied to industrial equipment via a communication network to the industrial equipment,
a storage unit for storing the software and meta information of the software;
a configuration management unit that stores configuration information of software applied to the industrial equipment;
a software distribution unit that compares the configuration information with the meta information, extracts the software that is newly applicable to the industrial equipment, and distributes the software to the industrial equipment;
an update plan creation unit that extracts a timing for delivering the software that does not affect the work plan based on the work plan and information relating to the industrial equipment,
The software distribution unit
Distributing the software to the industrial equipment at the distribution time;
The update plan creation unit
It has a device relevance interpretation unit and a delivery timing extraction unit,
The device association interpretation unit
acquiring, from a process control system, the work plan including information on a schedule of work processes and connections between the work processes, and equipment work allocation information indicating allocation of the industrial equipment to the work processes, interpreting equipment associations between the industrial equipment based on the work processes, and extracting the association information between the industrial equipment based on the equipment associations;
The delivery timing extraction unit
extracting the timing for distributing the software based on the work plan and the association information between the industrial devices;
The device association interpretation unit
A software distribution system characterized in that the device association between the industrial devices in the work process is interpreted based on an order that indicates an upstream-downstream relationship between the work processes . The update plan creation unit
A delivery timing extraction unit is included,
The delivery timing extraction unit
acquiring the work plan and the relationship information between the industrial equipment from an external medium;
2. The software distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the timing for distributing the software is extracted based on the work plan and the relation information between the industrial devices. The storage unit
2. The software distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the meta information of the software includes a name of the software, a version of the software, an estimated time required for updating the software, and distribution type information. The storage unit
4. The software distribution system according to claim 3 , wherein the distribution type information, which is the meta-information, stores information indicating whether the software distribution is within the work plan or outside the work plan. The update plan creation unit
5. The software distribution system according to claim 4 , wherein the distribution timing of software whose distribution type information is outside the work plan is extracted from the software that can be newly applied to the industrial equipment. The software distribution unit
extracting a plurality of pieces of software that can be newly applied to the industrial equipment;
The update plan creation unit
extracting, for the software outside the work plan among the plurality of pieces of software extracted by the software delivery unit, candidates for delivery times that will not affect the work plan based on information about the relationship between the work plan and the devices and the estimated time required for updating the software, and presenting the candidates to a user via a display terminal;
transmitting the delivery time, which is accepted via the display terminal from among the delivery time candidates presented to the user, to the software delivery unit;
The software distribution unit
4. The software distribution system according to claim 3 , wherein the software is distributed to the industrial equipment at the distribution time. The update plan creation unit
7. The software distribution system according to claim 6 , wherein candidates for the distribution timing that do not affect the work plan are extracted based on a designated priority. The update plan creation unit
7. The software distribution system according to claim 6 , wherein a time period after all work on the industrial equipment has been completed is selected as a candidate for the distribution time period that does not affect the work plan. The update plan creation unit
The software distribution system according to claim 6 , characterized in that the candidate distribution timing is extracted based on the sum of the estimated time required to update the software and the time required to restore the software to its pre-update state. The software distribution unit
2. The software distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the software is distributed to a control device that controls the industrial equipment at the distribution time. The software distribution system according to claim 1 ;
the process control system connected to the software distribution system via the communication network;
A software update plan creation system comprising: 1. A software distribution method for distributing software to be applied to industrial equipment via a communication network, the method comprising:
a storage step for storing the software and meta information of the software;
a configuration management step of storing configuration information of the software;
a software distribution step of comparing the configuration information with the meta information, extracting the software that is newly applicable to the industrial equipment, and distributing the software to the industrial equipment;
an update plan creation step of extracting a timing for delivering the software that does not affect the work plan based on the work plan and information relating to the industrial equipment;
The software distribution step includes:
Distributing the software to the industrial equipment at the distribution time;
The update plan creation step includes:
A device relevance interpretation step and a delivery timing extraction step are included,
The device association interpretation step includes:
acquiring, from a process control system, the work plan including information on a schedule of work processes and connections between the work processes, and equipment work allocation information indicating allocation of the industrial equipment to the work processes, interpreting equipment associations between the industrial equipment based on the work processes, and extracting the association information between the industrial equipment based on the equipment associations;
The delivery timing extraction step includes:
extracting the timing for distributing the software based on the work plan and the association information between the industrial devices;
The device association interpretation step includes:
A software distribution method, characterized in that the device association between the industrial devices in the work process is interpreted based on an order that indicates an upstream-downstream relationship between the work processes .