Edurne Irisarri

A CPPS Architecture approach for Industry 4.0

New demands, coming from the industry 4.0 concept of the near future production systems have to be fulfilled in the coming years. Seamless integration of current technologies with new ones is mandatory. The concept of Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) is the core of the new control and automation distributed systems. However, it is necessary to provide the global production system with integrated architectures that make it possible. This work analyses the requirements and proposes a model-based architecture and technologies to make the concept a reality.

A novel approach to attain the true reusability of the code between different PLC programming tools

Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems are used in most of the industrial sectors to achieve production improvement, process optimization and time and cost reduction. Integration, reuse, flexibility and optimization are demanded to adapt to a rapidly changing and competitive market. In fact, standardization is a key goal to achieve these goals. The international standardization efforts have lead to the definition of the IEC 61131 standard. Part 3 of this standard defines a software model for defining automation projects as well as 5 programming languages. Nowadays, a major part of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) vendors follows this standard, although each programming tool adds particularities and stores the automation project in different manner. But, although they may use the same software model and the same programming languages, source code reuse is not available. This work presents an infrastructure that allows transferring source code from one PLC programming tool to any other transparently to the users. The proposal consists of a textual expression of the software model and the programming languages, as well as the mechanisms, based on XML technologies, to achieve tool interoperability.

XML based Visualization of the IEC 61131-3 Graphical Languages

Industrial process measurement and control systems (IPMCS) are used in most of the industrial sectors to achieve production improvement, process optimization and time and cost reduction. Integration, reuse, flexibility and optimization are demanded to adapt to a rapidly changing and competitive market. In fact, standardization is a key goal to achieve integration and reuse in this type of applications. The international standardization efforts have lead to the definition of the IEC 61131 standard. Part 3 of this standard defines a software model for defining automation projects as well as 5 programming languages (two textual and 3 graphical) emphasizing software reuse. Currently, a major part of programmable logic controllers (PLC) vendors offer programming tools that follow this standard. However, for achieving true reusability, interoperability among programming tools is required. The technical committee 6 of the international organization PLCopen has proposed a XML based interface to achieve interoperability. This paper analyses the PLCopen TC6 XML schema and proposes a novel approach based on separation of concerns: a XML file that describes the contents of POUs written in a graphical language and a scalable vector graphic (SVG) file that defines the graphical view of the same file. Both can be generated from a file compliant to the PLCopen TC6 XML schema. The XML file can be used to achieve interoperability while the SVG file can be used for generating documentation in graphical form.

Plant floor communications integration using a low cost CPPS architecture

Currently, factory automation systems need to cope with very different challenges, such as technological advances happening very fast, global and competitive market or product customization. These challenges lead to a new generation of automation systems based on the so-called Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) globally connected to form a flexible System of Cyber-Physical Production Systems (SoCPPS). CPPSs require acquisition of production system data and smart data processing to extract information to improve the overall system performance. To achieve that it is needed to bridge the gap between the control systems and higher layers. This paper discusses an approach to use the IEC 61499 function block concept to exchange data between plant floor and higher layers using an industrial standard like OPC UA. The OPC UA server offers subscription mechanisms, making possible the integration of several resources residing at plant floor. As it runs on embedded devices, the proposal makes possible to acquire plant information at low cost, enabling at the same time, a component-based design for enterprise plant floor control with independence of the hardware platform used.

OPC-UA communications integration using a CPPS architecture

Low Cost Automation promotes cost effective reference architectures and development approaches to increase flexibility and efficiency of production operations. This has led to the adoption of open networking standards for plant floor communications. OPC-UA may help industrial companies to become Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing as it enables remote access to plant information, achieving thus horizontal and vertical integration. The main goal of this work is to make vertical integration a reality by means of a low-cost CPPS architecture that provide access to process data. The use of this architecture along the whole production automation system may certainly reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The paper describes both the hardware platform as well as the software including the proposed configuration file of the OPC-UA server.

Graphical representation of factory automation Markup Languages

Current industrial applications demand the design of more and more complex, safe and trustworthy control systems which exhibit a high degree of flexibility and reutilization. Therefore, the engineering process has to be improved through the integration of the tools involved in the development process. To achieve this goal the definition of Markup Languages for factory automation has been proposed at different layers of the engineering process. This work goes a step further and it proposes to use related XML technologies for filtering, processing and formatting the application model expressed in XML in order to visualize the graphical information. A methodology describing the steps to follow to achieve this goal is presented. It is illustrated for the graphical languages of the IEC 61131-3 standard for PLC programming.

A model-based approach for process monitoring in oil production industry

The basis for the fourth industrial revolution is the availability of accessing all relevant information in real time by connecting all instances involved in the value chain. The ultimate goal is to manage the entire value chain process, improving efficiencies in the production process and coming up with better products and services. The essence of vertical networking comes from the use of cyber-physical production systems (CPPSs) and vertical integration from sensors to the business level of the company. But in order to assure global interoperability, it is mandatory to use industrial standards to model the different views of stakeholders and communicate heterogeneous devices. This paper focuses on the field of process industry, particularly on the oil production process. A modeling approach based on industry standards is proposed. The final goal is to generate, from the models of the plant and data supplier devices, the OPC UA server configuration. The approach has been tested to model part of the Petroamazonas EP Company located in Ecuador.

Engineering tool to develop CPPS based on IEC-61499 and OPC UA for oil&gas process

Regarding current Oil&Gas production places, an important challenge is to deal with the increasing complexity of shop floor level data on existing production processes and, beyond that, allowing their possible vertical integration. In order to reach this goal, an integration of smart cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) into the automation production systems could be a solution. In the last decades, the Oil&Gas industry has been changing significantly with the progression of new and particular technologies; However, industrial IoT (IIoT) concepts have not yet been adopted and integrated. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the possible use of a CPPS architecture based on IEC 61499 and OPC UA for vertical integration in production systems to Oil&Gas industries. OPC UA can help industrial companies to integrate into the paradigm of Industry 4.0, allowing remote access to plant information and achieving vertical integration. An integrated development environment (IDE) has been created to easily design applications based on the IEC 61499 that allows Oil&Gas engineers a faster incorporation into this type of technology.

Real-time modeling for industrial control systems

This paper presents a temporal characterization of the IEC 61131-3 standard for automation software. The final goal is to apply schedulability analysis to industrial distributed control systems to assure they meet timing non functional requirements. This characterization has been performed in the context of a Model Driven Design approach previously proposed by the authors. The approach defines three Domain Specific Models: control specification and hardware and software architectures. The software model uses the PLCopen XML interface for expressing IEC 61131–3 automation projects. The information contained in the whole application model is processed to generate the temporal model of the application. Schedulability analysis is achieved by generating the temporal model of the well-known Modeling and Analysis Suite for Real-Time Applications, MAST.

Middleware based on XML technologies for achieving true interoperability between PLC programming tools

Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems are used in most of the industrial sectors to achieve production improvement, process optimization and time and cost reduction. Integration, reuse, flexibility and optimization are demanded to adapt to a rapidly changing and competitive market. In fact, standardization is a key goal to achieve these goals. The international standardization efforts have lead to the definition of the IEC 61131 standard. Part 3 of this standard defines a software model for defining automation projects as well as 5 programming languages. Nowadays, a major part of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) vendors follows this standard, although each programming tool adds particularities and stores the automation project in different manner. But, although they may use the same software model and the same programming languages, source code reuse is not available. This work presents an infrastructure that allows transferring source code from one PLC programming tool to any other transparently to the users. The proposal consists of a textual expression of the software model and the programming languages, as well as the mechanisms, based on XML technologies, to achieve tool interoperability.