Broker entity to bridge semantic gaps for information produced in industrial plants

1 . A computer-implemented broker entity for conveying state information from a technical system as a producer to a requesting device as a consumer, wherein the state information comprises a plurality of values that have been measured and/or generated by components of the technical system, each value is associated with a given semantic meaning, and the broker entity is configured to:

receive from the requesting device a request for one or more target values of state information that have sought target semantic meanings;

obtain from the technical system one or more source values of state information that are associated with given source semantic meanings;

obtain at least in part from a transformation library one or more transformations, wherein each transformation maps one or more first values that are associated with first semantic meanings to one or more second values that are associated with second semantic meanings;

apply the one or more transformations, or a new transformation obtained based on the one or more transformations, to the source values of state information, thereby obtaining the one or more target values of state information;

transmit the one or more target values to the requesting device;

wherein a new transformation obtained based on the one more transformation comprises one or more of:

applying a first transformation to one subset of the first values, and applying a second transformation to another subset of the first values;

applying a first transformation to one or more values, and applying a second transformation to the result of the first transformation; and

applying an inverse of a transformation.

2 . The broker entity of claim 1 , wherein the source semantic meanings, and/or the target semantic meanings, comprise one or more of:

a measurement unit of a physical quantity that a value represents;

a location in the technical system where a value has been determined; and

one or more classes with respect to which a value is a classification score.

3 . The broker entity of claim 2 , further configured to obtain at least one transformation that computes, from two or more first measurement values of different physical quantities, at least one second value of an aggregate of these physical quantities.

4 . The broker entity of claim 1 , wherein the broker entity is further configured to obtain the new transformation and/or the candidate transformation based at least in part on a match between the technical system and other technical systems to which transformations that form an inheritance hierarchy within in the transformation library relate.

5 . A computer-implemented broker entity for conveying state information from a technical system as a producer to a requesting device as a consumer, wherein the state information comprises a plurality of values that have been measured and/or generated by components of the technical system, each value is associated with a given semantic meaning, and the broker entity is configured to:

receive from the requesting device a request for one or more target values of state information that have sought target semantic meanings;

obtain from the technical system one or more source values of state information that are associated with given source semantic meanings;

obtain at least in part from a transformation library one or more transformations, wherein each transformation maps one or more first values that are associated with first semantic meanings to one or more second values that are associated with second semantic meanings;

apply the one or more transformations, or a new transformation obtained based on the one or more transformations, to the source values of state information, thereby obtaining the one or more target values of state information;

transmit the one or more target values to the requesting device;

wherein the broker entity is further configured to:

generate from one or more transformations obtained from the transformation library one or more candidate transformations;

determine a distance between an intermediate semantic meaning to which this candidate transformation can map the source semantic meanings on the one hand and the sought target semantic meanings on the other hand; and

storing a candidate transformation for which this distance is optimal in the transformation library as an optimal new transformation.

6 . The broker entity of claim 5 , wherein the broker entity is further configured to:

demand, from an engineer, input of a further transformation from the intermediate semantic meaning outputted by the optimal new transformation to the sought target semantic meaning; and

store this further transformation in the transformation library.