An IEC 61499 based approach for distributed batch process control

WSEAS Transactions on Computers, 2009

The Function Block (FB) model was first standardized by the 1131 standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for programmable controllers. This standard was successfully adopted by the industry but it seems to have several constraints for the development of today's complex embedded control and automation systems. These constraints are mainly imposed by the procedural programming paradigm and the device centric approach that are adopted by the standard. The IEC to address these constraints proposed the 61499 standard that is an attempt to exploit object-orientation and the application-centric paradigm in the control and automation domain. In this paper, the FB models of 1131 and 61499 are briefly described and several unclear issues related to the programming paradigms adopted, interoperability, composability and execution semantics of these FB models are clarified. The paper focuses on the execution semantics of the 61499 standard since this is one of the most important reasons that the industry has not yet accepted this standard.

2008 4th International IEEE Conference Intelligent Systems, 2008

This paper proposes an intelligent component based approach for batch control based on ANSI/ISA S88 standard. Common intelligent software components have been built and reused for different application. The components are managed in a control recipe that describes their execution schedule. Furthermore, IEC 61499 standard is adopted as an application framework in which the functional components are implemented as IEC 61499 based function blocks (FB). The operation schedule of the controlled components is then implemented according IEC 61499, based on Scheduler-Selector-Synchronizer (S³) architecture and SIPN models describing the sequence of control execution. An example of the proposed approach based on the real plant for Distillation of Sulphate Turpentine located in Velingrad, Bulgaria is presented and discussed.

IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2000

IEC 61499 has been endorsed as the standard for modelling and implementing distributed industrial-process measurement and control systems. The standard prescribes the use of function blocks for designing systems in a componentoriented approach. The execution model of a basic function block and the manner for event/data connections between blocks are described therein. Unfortunately, the standard does not provide exhaustive specifications for function block execution. Consequently, multiple standard-compliant implementations exhibiting different behaviours are possible. This not only defeats the purpose of having a standard, but makes verification of function block systems difficult. To overcome this, we propose synchronous semantics for function blocks, and show its feasibility by translating function blocks into a subset of Esterel, a wellknown synchronous language. The proposed semantics avoids causal cycles common in Esterel, and is proven to be reactive and deterministic under any composition. Moreover, verification techniques developed for synchronous systems can now be applied to function blocks.

… and Factory Automation, 2006. ETFA'06. …, 2006

The International Electro-technical Commission through the 61499 standard establishes the basic infrastructure towards an open market in the control and automation domain.

Advances in Computer, Information, and Systems …, 2006

The International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) has adopted the function block (FB) concept to define the IEC 61499 standard for the development of distributed industrial control applications. However, even though many researchers have been working during the last years to exploit this standard in factory automation, it is clear that the standard has a long way towards its adoption by the industry. Most practitioners are unfamiliar with the semantics of this standard and even more modifications and extensions are required to the model in order to be effectively used in the context of a process that will addresses the whole life cycle of factory automation systems. This paper surveys research results reported so far about the IEC 61499 model and attempts to highlight the inefficiencies of this paradigm to support the whole development process of distributed control applications as far as the software engineering point of view is considered. Open problems and future challenges are discussed as well.

IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, ETFA, 2012

Reusability of control code is crucial for future industrial automation in order to allow the development of high quality control systems in less time and with less cost. A key stopper for automation software reuse is the current intertwining of control logic with hardware specific code. Existing approaches that tackled such a problem could lead to improvements but will not sufficiently solve this issue. In this work we investigate a concept based on a logical grouping of I/Os to so called Instrumentation-and Control-Points and decoupling them from the control application by applying IEC 61499's adapter concept. In two industrial motivated application examples we show that this concept fulfills the requirements for increasing the reusability of control code by separating control logic from hardware specific code. Moreover, it leads to a better application software structure which is easier to maintain and to understand.

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics

Automation system engineering becomes more complex, due to the trend towards more flexible, reconfigurable, and modular design approaches, like Industry 4.0. For the modeling and design of the according software, two standards are present: IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499. In order to satisfy the requirements for modern, large scale, highly-distributed applications while also supporting still existing legacy systems, the demand for a combined development framework arises, where the best of breed tool can be chosen for a given automation task. Considering that, the IEC 61499 model is extended to allow the dual development and execution of IEC 61131-3 programs, and enabling easy and correct interaction between the two paradigms. In order to verify the validity of the chosen approach, an IEC 61499 development tool and a runtime environment is modified to support IEC 61131-3. A sample application is implemented, which comprises a pure IEC 61131-3 part with a 1 ms cycle time, a pure IEC 61499 part, and a part with interaction between both subparts, in order to evaluate possible interference between the runtime parts. Experimental results show that no interference is occurring, and the chosen development approach allows the seamless integration of IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499 in one combined development framework. Index Terms-IEC 61499, IEC 61131, interoperability I. INTRODUCTION I N CURRENT automation systems, control software is the main driver for functionality and innovation, and therefore is a significant component. Hence, its development makes a large share of the overall costs. Considering nowadays trend towards Industry 4.0, the requirements regarding interoperability, flexibility, and reconfigurability gain importance [1]. Currently, when developing such systems, engineers have to choose between two prominent standards: the IEC 61131-3-Programmable controllers: Programming languages [2] and the IEC 61499-Function blocks [3]. The IEC 61131-3 standard's main focus was on easy-to-use programming languages, and single Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) systems, each controlling a defined section of the production process. With the move to modern large scale applications, the control software development had to deal with features like adaptability, reusability, and distributability. IEC 61131-3 evolved (e.g., object-oriented extensions, IEC 61131-5 for communication) to meet these new needs, though it was never Manuscript

Industrial Informatics, 2008. …, 2008

The Function Block (FB) is proposed by IEC 61499 as the basic construct for the development of reusable, interoperable, distributed control applications. The FB designlevel construct is clearly described by the standard so various prototype development environments have been developed during last years. However, implementation model issues are not explicitly addressed and this is one of the main reasons for the fact that the FB model has not been yet adopted by industry. In this paper, we describe implementation model alternatives with main focus on the mapping of the FB network constructs to the target execution environment RTOS tasks. Schedulability analysis techniques are also considered to provide a framework for the automatic synthesis of the implementation model. The objective is to guarantee the same standard set of execution semantics independent of the execution environment.

2009 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology, 2009

Current trends in the manufacturing sector have greatly increased the need for portability and reusability in software systems for industrial control and automation. The IEC 61499 standard has emerged out of this need for a platformindependent way to develop industrial control systems. So far, typical IEC 61499 solutions have relied on some run-time environment that differ in the execution model for each implementation. This has resulted in code that is neither portable, nor efficient in terms of execution speed and memory footprint. Therefore, we present, instead, a synchronous model for function blocks, which removes the need for a run-time environment by making all event scheduling decisions during compile-time. This approach has been used to create a function block compiler, with two different back-end code generators. We present experimental results of a benchmark suite implemented using different code generators for different execution models, and show that our technique yields significant gains in efficiency over existing approaches.

Computers in Industry, 2015

Journal of Control Engineering and Applied Informatics, 2015

This paper describes several solutions for a standardized, generic representation of the algorithms in a library of complex multi-functional process control algorithms. After presenting the library architecture, the paper describes the library design guide that will help the library administrators to manage the components that will be added to the library. Also we defined the performance criteria for algorithm representation and we presented a comparison of different standards based on these criteria so that we can find the best solution for the standardized representation of the components in the library. In the end we apply a transformation method from Simulink to the selected representation in two process examples. This method can be used for algorithm verification and validation purposes.

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 2000

IEC 61499 Function Block Model: Facts and Fallacies by Kleanthis Thramboulidis C ontrol and automation systems in factory automation are developed using the procedural and device-centric paradigms. The always-increasing complexity of systems in this domain, as well as the need for agility, flexible plugand-play, extensibility, and evolution, imposes the need for new paradigms to effectively address today's requirements. The function block (FB) model, introduced by the IEC 61499 standard [1], is an attempt to open the industrial systems market and exploit current software engineering practices and the application-centric paradigm in this domain. The IEC 61499 standard is also an attempt to address requirements such as interoperability, portability, distribution, agility, run-time reconfigurability, higher availability, and reliability. It is supposed to 1) facilitate the exchange of design information between designers and fabrication houses and 2) allow the designers to integrate competing vendors' tools and reduce the risk of relying on proprietary languages and data formats. However, even though the standard has been officially accepted by 2005, it is not yet adopted by the industry [2]-[4], and its status in the academic research community is questionable. In this article, the current status of the standard is described, and its drafting process as well as its validation prior to implementation is commented. Facts and fallacies are presented and properly discussed to

Innovative Algorithms and Techniques in …, 2007

The International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) has adopted the function block (FB) concept to define the IEC 61499 standard for the development of the next generation distributed control applications. However, even though many researchers are working last years to exploit this standard in factory automation a lot of issues are still open. Except from the open issues in the design phase a lot of execution semantics are still undefined making the development of execution environments a difficult task. In this paper the semantics of the execution of the IEC 61499 Function Block model are examined, possible alternatives are investigated and existing implementations are discussed.

2010 8th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, 2010

In order for industrial automation manufacturers to remain competitive, they must utilise modern design approaches. Existing approaches using IEC 61131 langauges are not object oriented and are difficult to reconfigure for other applications. IEC 61499 is an open standard aimed at replacing IEC 61131, adding modern design features and hardware abstraction. Therefore there is a need to migrate existing code bases using IEC 61131 technologies into the newer IEC 61499 language for future development.