US-12619798-B2 - Method for updating a description of an automation system

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for updating a description of an automation system of a power network including at least: providing a preliminary description of the automation system, the preliminary description including components and relationships; providing at least one non-functional requirement; adapting the preliminary description to meet the non-functional requirement by modifying the components and relationships; instantiating a final description of the automation system based on the adapted preliminary description.

Inventors

• Mayank Sharma
• Soguy Mak-Karé Gueye
• Philippe Nappey

Assignees

• SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES SAS

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20210713

Priority Date

20200716

Claims (17)

1. 1 . A computer-implemented method for updating a description of an automation system of a power network comprising: providing a human machine interface configured to allow a user to define a preliminary description of the automation system and at least one non-functional requirement; providing the preliminary description of the automation system to an engineering system, the preliminary description comprising components, attributes of the components, each attribute corresponding to a property or parameter of a respective component, and relationships between the components; providing the at least one non-functional requirement to the engineering system; adapting the preliminary description to meet the non-functional requirement by modifying the components and the relationships between the components in the preliminary description, by modifying the attributes of the components; instantiating a final description of the automation system based on the adapted preliminary description; and implementing the final description on the automation system, wherein operation of the automation system is controlled according to the final description.
2. 2 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of using the instantiated description for deployment of the automation system.
3. 3 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein a component belongs to the power network and/or the automation system, and is chosen among an asset, a service and a host.
4. 4 . The method according to claim 3 , wherein a relationship is either a physical connection between two components or a resource allocation by mapping a service to one or several hosts.
5. 5 . The method according to claim 1 wherein the components are provided in the preliminary description by using a meta-model, each component being defined by a specific profile.
6. 6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein providing at least one non-functional requirement comprises obtaining attributes on the automation system capabilities from a user.
7. 7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein adapting the preliminary description further comprises removing components from the preliminary description.
8. 8 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein adapting the preliminary description further comprises selecting other components from a repository to be added to the preliminary description, selection of the components being based on the preliminary description and the non-functional requirement.
9. 9 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein selecting other components from the repository to be added to the preliminary description comprises: choosing one component profile from the repository; validating the preliminary description by verifying that the preliminary description comprising the chosen component profile meets the non-functional requirement; if the chosen component profile is not validated, adjusting the preliminary description and repeating the validating of the preliminary description; and if the chosen component profile is validated, adding the chosen component profile to the preliminary description.
10. 10 . The method according to claim 9 , wherein adjusting the preliminary description consists in choosing another component having a different profile or adding another component profile to the preliminary description.
11. 11 . The method according to claim 9 , wherein the component is chosen from a repository of a profile creator, the repository comprising component profiles.
12. 12 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the non-functional requirement is a performance or dependency metric of the automation system.
13. 13 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the automation system is adapted to monitor, protect and/or control an electrical network.
14. 14 . A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium on which a software is stored to implement the method according to claim 1 when the software is executed by a processor.
15. 15 . An engineering system for updating a description of an automation system comprising: at least one processor; and a recording medium coupled to the at least one processor, the recording medium storing processor-executable instructions thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the engineering system to provide: a description editor adapted to provide a preliminary description of an automation system, the preliminary description comprising components, attributes of the components, each attribute corresponding to a property or parameter of a respective component, and relationships between the components, and at least one non-functional requirement; a human machine interface configured to allow a user to access and use the description editor to define the preliminary description of the automation system and the at least one non-functional requirement; and an instantiation element configured to adapt the preliminary description to meet the non-functional requirement by modifying the components and the relationships between the components in the preliminary description, by modifying the attributes of the components, and to instantiate a final description based on the adaptation of the preliminary description; wherein the engineering system is configured to implement the final description on the automation system, and operation of the automation system is controlled according to the final description.
16. 16 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising operating the automation system with the final description implemented thereon under stress conditions and evaluating a suitability of the final description under the stress conditions.
17. 17 . The engineering system of claim 15 , wherein the automation system with the final description implemented thereon is operated under stress conditions, and the processor-executable instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the engineering system to evaluate a suitability of the final description under the stress conditions.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates to a method for designing an automation system. More particularly, the invention relates to a method for updating a description of an automation system and a system adapted to implement such method. BACKGROUND ART Engineering and operation of power utility automation systems are more and more complex. Besides, end customers are increasingly asking for stringent non-functional requirements, such as performance and dependability requirements. These requirements must be considered during the whole lifecycle (specification, design, build, operation, maintenance) of the automation system. This requires continuous validation and refinement of the automation systems that may not be easy to implement without oversimplifying their descriptions. There is therefore a need for enhanced ways of specification, designing, simulation, validation of determining expected overall capability metrices of automation systems, in particular to meet the evolving needs of a power network infrastructure. Also, to simplify the lifecycle aspects of initial deployment of the automation system solution followed by lifecycle related system updates and upgrades, there is a need for an easy way to automatically generate/update a description of an automation system while asking a minimum number of requirements/inputs to a user. SUMMARY OF INVENTION It is an object of the invention to alleviate the challenges of designing, engineering and managing non-functional requirements of automation systems, and in particular, to provide designing tools for modelling in a more simplified way. In one aspect, the invention relates to a computer implemented method for updating a description of an automation system of a power network comprising at least the steps of: providing a preliminary description of the automation system, the preliminary description comprising components and relationships between the components;providing at least one non-functional requirement;adapting the preliminary description to meet the non-functional requirement by modifying the components and relationships; andinstantiating a final description of the automation system based on the adapted preliminary description. In another aspect, the invention relates to a system, such as an engineering system, for designing a description of an automation system comprising: a description editor adapted to provide a preliminary description of an automation system, the preliminary description comprising components and relationships between the components, and at least one non-functional requirement; andan instantiation element to adapt the preliminary description to meet the non-functional requirement by modifying the components and relationships and to instantiate a final description of the automation system based on the adapted preliminary description. This enables a description refinement/update automatically while meeting the constraints on the description asked by the user. Such refinement/update can be performed even for very complex automation system comprising a large number of components and relationships. The disclosed technical solution is thus particularly useful to automation system engineers and domain expert of such automation systems during all the system lifecycle phases. Overall, the invention results in more accurate simulation of the system behavior and in more reliable estimation of its overall capabilities, for instance by estimating the expected performance, availability of application functions during the design and integration phase before the deployment, in particular manual or automatic installation and commissioning, to an operational (or production) environment. It is thus possible to obtain a fully defined and autonomous description of an automation system given a specific application function or considering specific constraints. This method and system can be applied to any automation system. In another aspect, it is proposed a computer-readable non-transient recording medium on which a software is registered to implement the method as defined here when the software is executed by a processor. The following features can be optionally implemented, separately or in combination one with the others. The method comprises a further step of using the instantiated description for deployment of the automation system. A component belongs to the power network and/or the automation system and is chosen among an asset, a service and a host. A relationship is either a physical connection between two components or a resource allocation by mapping a service to one or several hosts. The components are provided in the preliminary description by using a meta-model, each component being defined by a specific profile. The step of providing a preliminary description comprises obtaining attributes on the components from a user. Adapting the preliminary description comprises modifying attributes of the components of the preliminary descriptio