Richard M Riddle

US Patent:

7689689, Mar 30, 2010

Filed:

Jun 11, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/760967

Inventors:

Kris Alan Kazmar - Harleysville PA, US
Anthony John Smith - New Tripoli PA, US
Richard Crawford Riddle - Macungie PA, US

Assignee:

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. - Allentown PA

International Classification:

G06F 15/16

US Classification:

709224

Abstract:

A method of protecting a networked industrial controller from network storms is disclosed in the specification. The networked industrial controller has a real-time operating system and communication components performing communication exchanges with connected networks. The method comprises steps of:(a) Initializing a watchdog thread monitor thread to have a high priority within the real-time operating system's kernel level;(b) configuring a watchdog thread to periodically (every Ttime) send an alive event signal to the watchdog thread monitor thread if all other threads of application programs are operating normally;(c) starting the watchdog thread monitor thread waiting for receiving the alive event signal within a timeout period T(Tis longer than T);(d) identifying a network storm in response to the alive event signal; and(e) controlling the communication exchanges in response to the alive event signal and current phase of the watchdog thread monitor thread.