| abstract |
The present invention is for automatic reconfiguration of industrial networked devices. More particularly, the system described herein facilitates use of TCP/IP networks, such as Ethernet (20), as an alternative for industrial fieldbus or device buses by removing the need to perform significant reconfiguration of devices such as I/O modules (50), sensors, or transducers under field replacement situations. The present invention uses a monitor agent (10) to track the IP and MAC addresses of networked devices as well as port information. If a device fails, maintenance personnel make an in-field replacement of the failed device and the monitor agent (10) automatically reassigns the IP address to the replacement device. |