Modelling control systems using IEC 61499

This paper introduces these basic concepts about Web services and primitive SOA and so on,and details how to understand SOA by these basic concepts.Finally provides the definition of the Contemporary SOA.

Understanding Service-Oriented Architecture

The article outlines as an example an IEC 61499 compliance profile, designated: the 'IEC 61499 Compliance Profile for Feasibility Demonstrations'. Currently, most IEC 61499 implementations comply at least in part to this compliance profile. Originally, the profile was developed within the 'Holonic Manufacturing Systems' project to show the inter-vendor feasibility of IEC 61499. The original version was defined by the companies Rockwell Automation, Softing AG and Profactor GmbH. Currently it is hosted and maintained by the company Holobloc Inc. Note: Compliance profiles are typically developed and maintained by organisations not under direct control of the IEC. The scope of this compliance profile is to provide reference definitions for all three aspects (i.e. portability, interoperability and configurability) of IEC 61499 compliance profiles. How these three aspects are defined in the 'IEC 61499 Compliance Profile for Feasibility Demonstrations' is outlined in the article.

Appendix B: IEC 61499 Compliance Profile for Feasibility Demonstrations

The shop floor or factory floor is the area inside a factory where manufacturing production is executed. The digitalisation of this area has been increasing in the last few years, introducing the Digital Twin (DT) and the Industry 4.0 concepts. A DT is the digital representation of a real object or an entire system. A DT includes a high diversity of components from different vendors that need to interact with each other efficiently. In most cases, the development of standards and protocols does not consider the need to operate with other standards and protocols, causing interoperability issues. Transducers (sensors and actuators) use the communication layer to exchange information with digital contra parts, and for this reason, the communication layer is one of the most relevant aspects of development. This paper covers DT development, going from the physical to the visualisation layer. The reference architecture models, standards, and protocols focus on interoperability to reach a syntactic level of communication between the IEEE 1451 and the IEC 61499 standards. A semantic communication layer connects transducer devices to the digital representation, achieving a semantic level of interoperability. This communication layer adds semantics to the communication process, allowing the development of an interoperable DT based on the IEEE 1451 standards. The DT presented reaches the syntactic and semantic levels of interoperability, allowing the monitoring and visualisation of a prototype system.

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An Interoperable Digital Twin with the IEEE 1451 Standards

Interoperability is one of the important characteristics of the cyber-physical system (CPS) based automation system. Engineers connecting field devices and control applications in an automation system regularly encounter interoperability problems. ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451 is a series of standard, which provide the building blocks to enable interoperability among field devices and control applications. transducer electronic datasheets (TEDS) are provided as a standard transducer description format by ISO/IEC/IEEE 21450. This format provisions the syntactic interoperability among heterogeneous field devices. However, open platform communication unified architecture (OPCUA) is a key enabling technology to achieve semantic and network interoperability. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide an integration approach for ISO/IEC/IEEE 21450 TEDS and devices in the OPCUA semantic model. We propose an ISO/IEC/IEEE 21450 based device integration concept with service oriented architecture.

Integration of ISO/IEC/IEEE 21450 Transducer Electronic Datasheets into OPC UA Information Model

This paper presents a work in progress on a modular architecture design of industrial HMIs. The proposed approach is based on a micro frontend architecture style for developing web applications. It allows developers and integration engineers to build an HMI from distributed and modular shop-floor components called micro frontend. Each micro frontend is end-to-end integrated from its data acquisition to the user interfaces. This approach introduces an agile and modular development style of an industrial HMI for a modular and adaptive production system.

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Towards a Modular Architecture for Industrial HMIs

In the modern era of industrial automation, the term Industry 4.0 is defined as the fourth industrial revolution. This is a phenomenon where technologies from various layers of an enterprise are interconnected and form a meshed network of self-regulated, adaptive, re-configurable and self-optimizing devices. These devices vary from Programmable Logic Controller, embedded PCs, edge nodes, smart sensors, and actuators, working as proxies or mediators for a real object in the software domain integrating into Intelligent Enterprise Applications. Heterogeneous configuration interfaces of these devices hinder smooth integration and configuration process. A unified way of interacting with the devices for configuration is well-defined in the IEC 61499 standard. The standard defines the commands, interaction behavior, and interface description for the control devices and engineering tools. There are implementations of the configuration interface in XML and Binary XML, which are widely used for their flexible, extensible, and human-readable nature. Whereas the OPC UA can offer an open configuration interface for the IEC 61499 devices and software tools, with built-in interoperability solutions. This paper introduces the concept of a new configuration interface for the IEC 61499 devices using OPC UA information modeling concepts.

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OPC UA based IEC 61499 Device Configuration Interface

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), supported by the rapid growth in computing and communication technologies in the past decade, has started the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). Industry 4.0 reinvents the industrial communication paradigm by proposing a mesh of intertwined physical and digital entities, namely the digital twin network. Integration of brownfield legacy systems into an Industry 4.0 compliant CPS, due to their relatively high vendor dependency and technological heterogeneity, remains one of the biggest challenges. To tackle this issue, Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) was developed. OPC UA acts as a vendor and protocol-agnostic communication middleware for data acquisition. Modern Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) allow running an OPC UA server inside them and data access can be performed through any OPC UA client tool. While this does solve the brownfield integration problem to a certain extent, the majority of the tools on the shop floor still use vendor-specific technologies. PLC4X is a set of libraries for communicating with PLCs and fetching data from them. It supports a wide range of communication protocols and could be a promising candidate for addressing the integration challenges. Therefore, in this paper, we evaluate the viability of PLC4X as an enabler for a communication middleware that tackles the integration challenges concerning the brownfield systems in Industry 4.0. 

Muddasir Shakil

Papers

Towards a Modular Architecture for Industrial HMIs

OPC UA based IEC 61499 Device Configuration Interface

Integration of ISO/IEC/IEEE 21450 Transducer Electronic Datasheets into OPC UA Information Model

Evaluation of PLC4X based Middleware as Integrator of Brownfield systems into Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems