Towards a Model-Driven IEC 61131-Based Development Process in Industrial Automation

Kleanthis Thramboulidis, Georg Frey

.

DOI: 10.4236/jsea.2011.44024                

Abstract

The IEC 61131-3 standard defines a model and a set of programming languages for the development of industrial automation software. It is widely accepted by industry and most of the commercial tool vendors advertise compliance with it. On the other side, Model Driven Development (MDD) has been proved as a quite successful paradigm in general-purpose computing. This was the motivation for exploiting the benefits of MDD in the industrial automation domain. With the emerging IEC 61131 specification that defines an object-oriented (OO) extension to the function block model, there will be a push to the industry to better exploit the benefits of MDD in automation systems development. This work discusses possible alternatives to integrate the current but also the emerging specification of IEC 61131 in the model driven development process of automation systems. IEC 61499, UML and SysML are considered as possible alternatives to allow the developer to work in higher layers of abstraction than the one supported by IEC 61131 and to more effectively move from requirement specifications into the implementation model of the system.

Keywords

Industrial Automation Systems, Model Driven Development, IEC 61131, System Modeling, UML, SysML, IEC 61499, Development Process

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	International Electrotechnical Commission, “IEC International Standard IEC 61131-3: Programmable Controllers, Part 3: Programming Languages,” IEC, 2003.
[2]	G. Doukas and K. Thramboulidis, “A Real-Time Linux Based Framework for Model-Driven Engineering in Control and Automation,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 58, No. 3, March 2011, pp. 914-924.
[3]	D. Streitferdt, G. Wendt, P. Nenninger, A. Nyssen and H. Lichter, “Model Driven Development Challenges in the Automation Domain,” 32nd Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Software and Applications, Turku, 28 July-1 August 2008, pp. 1372-1375.
[4]	S. Panjaitan and G. Frey, “Combination of UML Modeling and the IEC 61499 Function Block Concept for the development of Distributed Automation Systems,” 11th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Prague, September 2006, pp. 766-773.
[5]	K. Thramboulidis, D. Perdikis and S. Kantas, “Model Driven Development of Distributed Control Applications,” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 33, No. 3-4, 2007, pp. 233-242.
[6]	International Electrotechnical Commission, “International Standard IEC61499, Function Blocks, Part 1-Part 4,” IEC, 2005.
[7]	B. Werner, “Object-Oriented Extensions for IEC 61131,” IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2009, pp. 36-39.
[8]	B. Selic, “From Model-Driven Development to Model- Driven Engineering,” 19th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems, Pisa, 4-6 July 2007.
[9]	K. Thramboulidis, “Design Alternatives in the IEC 61499 Function Block Model,” 11th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Prague, September 2006, pp. 1309-1316.
[10]	B. Vogel-Heuser, D. Witsch and U. Katzke, “Automatic Code Generation from a UML model to JEC 61131-3 and System Configuration Tools,” International Conference on Control and Automation, Budapest, 27-29 June 2005, pp. 1034-1039.
[11]	D. N. Ramos-Hernandez, P. J. Fleming and J. M. Bass, “A Novel Object-Oriented Environment for Distributed Process Control Systems,” Control Engineering Practice, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2005, pp. 213-230.
[12]	K. Sacha, “Verification and Implementation of Dependable Controllers,” 3rd International Conference on Dependability of Computer Systems DepCoS-RELCOMEX, Szklarska Poreba, Poland, June 2008, pp. 143-151.
[13]	U. Katzke and B. Vogel-Heuser, “Combining UML with IEC 61131-3 Languages to Preserve the Usability of Graphical Notations in the Software Development of Complex Automation Systems,” 10th IFAC, IFIP, IFORS, IEA Symposium on Analysis, Design, and Evaluation of Human-Machine Systems, Seoul, September 2007.
[14]	F. Chiron and K. Kouiss, “Design of IEC 61131-3 Function Blocks Using SysML,” Mediterranean Conference on Control & Automation, Athens, 2007.
[15]	K. Thramboulidis, “The 3 + 1 SysML View-Model in Model Integrated Mechatronics,” Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2010, pp. 109-118.
[16]	K. Thramboulidis, “IEC61499 Function Block Model: Facts and Fallacies,” IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 2009, pp. 7-26.
[17]	A. Zoitl and V. Vyatkin, “IEC 61499 Architecture for Distributed Automation: The ‘Glass Half Full” View’,” IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2009, pp. 7-23.
[18]	C. Gerber, H. M. Hanisch and S. Ebbinghaus, “From IEC 61131 to IEC 61499 for Distributed Systems: A Case Study,” EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems, Vol. 2008, Article ID 231630, p. 8.
[19]	T. Hussain and G. Frey, “Migration of a PLC Controller to an IEC 61499 Compliant Distributed Control System: Hands-on Experiences,” 21st IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Barcelona, 18-22 April 2005, pp. 3984-3989.
[20]	K. Thramboulidis, “Τhe Function Block Model in Embedded Control and Automation: From IEC61131 to IEC61499,” WSEAS Transactions on Computers, Vol. 8, No. 9, September 2009, pp. 1597-1609.
[21]	K. Thramboulidis, G. Doukas and A. Frantzis, “Towards an Implementation Model for FB-Based Reconfigurable Distributed Control Applications,” 7th International Symposium on Object-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing, Viena, 2004, pp. 193-200.
[22]	OMG, “OMG Systems Modeling Language,” V1.0, September 2007.
[23]	OMG, “A UML Profile for MARTE: Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time Embeded systems,” Beta 2, June 2008.