TwinCAT Analytics

The TwinCAT 3 Scope View is a software oscilloscope for the graphic representation of signal curves in different chart types. These could be, for example, YT, XY, bar or digital charts. The Scope View Professional extends the Scope View Base version supplied with TwinCAT 3 XAE by additional functionalities. The field of application refers to processes that are to be tracked and monitored over a longer period of time.

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics Workbench is a TwinCAT 3 engineering product for the creation of continual data analyses from various spatially distributed machine controllers. The configuration of the workbench is integrated in Microsoft Visual Studio^® and serves as the graphic user interface. Many algorithms are available in a toolbox for the configuration of the analysis:

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics Service Tool is used for commissioning the machine and for service engineers. Live and historical data can be retrieved for an analysis via the IoT connection. The analysis is configured in Microsoft Visual Studio^® where the user has access to a toolbox of algorithms for implementing the relevant life time, cycle time, envelope or component counter analysis. The outputs of the algorithms can be used as inputs for other algorithms or can be output as a result directly in the graphical editor. Signal paths can be visualized with ease by means of parallel recording with the TwinCAT Scope. Analysis results can be dragged by the user from the analytics configurator and dropped in the charting tool so as to mark the significant positions in the data stream. The interaction between the product components offers advantages in particular for diagnosing machine behavior and can highlight optimization potential. The user’s location is immaterial owing to the IoT technologies used, which means that service technicians can perform system and machine diagnostics from practically any location.

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics Logger ensures the cycle-synchronous acquisition of process and application data from the machine controller. The logger is characterized by high performance because it works directly in the real-time context of the TwinCAT controller. The data acquired is optionally transmitted to a message broker via the IoT communication protocol MQTT or stored locally in a file on the hard drive of the machine control and recorded with ring buffer functionality. The configuration necessary for this is done in Microsoft Visual Studio^® within the TwinCAT project. All variables of the process image and the PLC application can easily be added to the configuration via checkbox without any programming effort.

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics Library is a PLC library with analysis functions for process and application data. It can be used locally on the machine controller or on a remote analysis system with an IoT communication connection. In both use cases, a great deal of engineering time can be saved with the automatic PLC code generation by the TE3500 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Workbench. For local use, only the mapping takes place manually; in the IoT workflow, even the mapping is omitted and is carried out automatically.

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics Storage Provider is an IoT client and forms the interface for raw and analysis data from various sources to one or more storages or to one or more databases. The data are deposited in the storage as a binary blob. A Microsoft SQL database and the TwinCAT Analytics binary file are supported for on-premises solutions. Both are usable in cloud applications; an Azure Blob Storage can also be used natively in the cloud. The data selection for the read and write direction takes place centrally via the TwinCAT Target Browser in the TwinCAT Engineering environment. The user selects the data via the self-defined variable name in the machine application and the corresponding time period; complex SQL commands are not necessary. The sources for the historical data can be the TF3500 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Logger, the TF6720 TwinCAT 3 IoT Data Agent and the EK9160 IoT Bus Coupler. In addition to the engineering tools TE3500 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Workbench and TE3520 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Service Tool, the recipients of the data are the two runtime products TF3550 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Runtime and TF3551 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Runtime Base.

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics Runtime is the runtime “container” for the Analytics application, which was configured and developed in the TE3500 TwinCAT 3 Analytics Workbench. The runtime can be installed locally, on remote hardware or in a virtual machine. It also contains the TF2000 TwinCAT 3 HMI Server, which hosts the analytics dashboard. In summary, the TwinCAT 3 Analytics Runtime represents a bundle of different licenses. It contains a PLC runtime, the Analytics PLC library, the IoT connection with MQTT and HTTPS/Rest, the Storage Provider connection, the TwinCAT 3 HMI Server and a corresponding client package, so that several users can view the designed Analytics Dashboard simultaneously.

The TwinCAT 3 Analytics functions have been enhanced.