Oliver Hummer

Zero Downtime Reconfiguration of Distributed Automation Systems: The εCEDAC Approach

Future manufacturing is envisioned to be highly flexible and adaptable. New technologies for reconfigurable systems and their adaptations are preconditions for this vision. Without such solutions, engineering adaptations of Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) will exceed the costs of engineered systems by far and the reuse of equipment will become inefficient. Especially the reconfiguration of control applications is not sufficiently solved. This paper gives an overview of the use of reconfiguration applications for downtimeless system evolution of control applications on basis of the standard IEC 61499. A new approach for the reconfiguration of IEC 61499 based control application and the corresponding modeling is discussed. This new method significantly increases engineering efficiency and reuse in component-based IPMCS.

Integrating software agents and IEC 61499 realtime control for reconfigurable distributed manufacturing systems

The need for agility in manufacturing systems is continuously growing. This is caused by increasing complexity and decreasing life cycles of the produced goods. This paper proposes a modular, reconfigurable manufacturing system, based on a distributed three layer architecture, consisting of mechatronic components, an IEC 61499 based distributed low level control and on top a multi agent system as high level control. Adaptivity to new demands is added by the inclusion of knowledge in the top layer. Agents are able to understand the structure of the manufacturing system and the produced goods. This enables the high level control to reconfigure the underlying system. To gain most value of this combination, agents and the low level control have to work together in an integrated environment. An interface for connecting distributed low level control and the multi agent system is presented.

Modeling of Reconfiguration Control Applications based on the IEC 61499 Reference Model for Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems

Future manufacturing is envisioned to be highly flexible and adaptable. New technologies for efficient engineering of reconfigurable systems and their adaptations are preconditions for this vision. Without such solutions, engineering adaptations of Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) will exceed the costs of engineered systems by far and the reuse of equipment will become inefficient. In this work a new approach for the reconfiguration of IEC 61499 based control application and the corresponding modeling is proposed. This new method significantly increases engineering efficiency and reuse in component-based IPMCSs control

Towards Zero-downtime Evolution of Distributed Control Applications via Evolution Control based on IEC 61499

In todays globalized markets the manufacturing industry in traditional high-wage countries highly depends on flexible and automated manufacturing systems to remain competitive. State-of-the-art industrial control and automation systems do not sufficiently solve the problem of downtimeless reconfiguration of control applications. This paper presents an approach for structured modeling of controlled reconfigurations of control applications based on IEC 61499. The reconfiguration process itself with this paper defined as evolution allows close interaction with applications or physical processes while modeling knowledge from control engineering is reused for evolution engineering. An example points out the evolution engineering process as well as the benefits of this new approach.

Development of an extensible engineering support tool for IEC 61499 considering WYSIWYG GUI building as example

In todays production and assembly processes, conventional PLC-based architectures are state-of-the-art for control engineering and application design. These kinds of architectures cause high costs for engineering and maintenance, especially adaptation of applications and hardware modifications create intolerable overhead. Distributed automation systems built of mechatronic components help coping with the demands of modern markets. The paper presents a new architecture for integrated modeling of such systems, introducing different views for domain experts. A modular engineering support tool based on an open tool integration platform is developed, using IEC 61499 as common data model

An Advanced Engineering Environment for Distributed & Reconfigurable Industrial Automation & Control Systems based on IEC 61499

Publisher Summary The manufacturing and production industry will only survive in a more and more globalized world if they react fast and flexible to new market and customer demands. To achieve the postulated flexibility, support for reconfiguration is necessary. Distributed automation systems built out of mechatronic components help coping with these demands. This chapter presents a new architecture for the integrated modeling of control and reconfiguration control applications for such systems, which results in a modular advanced engineering environment for distributed and reconfigurable Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS) based on the International Electrochemical Commission (IEC) 61499 standard. A review of existing engineering tools based on the IEC 61499 standard shows a lack especially in engineering support for communication and for reconfiguration control applications. Therefore, this chapter illustrates a framework for an integrated engineering environment. A first prototypical implementation of this tool is also presented.

Downtimeless System Evolution: Current State and Future Trends

Recent studies report a growing demand for downtimeless evolution of distributed automation systems. This paper therefore first analyzes evolution approaches from the industry as well as from academic research pointing out benefits and drawbacks. The standard IEC 61499 is identified as promising basis for dynamic reconfiguration of control applications, but it lacks for an adequate engineering methodology. Finally the epsivCEDAC approach for structured evolution modeling is presented. Therein a distributed evolution control application modeled in terms of IEC 61499 is used for transforming the control application from current to desired state without downtime. Further important issues are correctness of the evolution process and runtime error handling mechanisms.

Implementing IEC 61499 communication with the CIP protocol

IEC 61499 is introduced as a new standard for industrial process measurement and control system. Communication function blocks are however, only loosely defined as they are implementation dependant. This paper presents the definition of communication function blocks for the CIP protocol which is a well established standard in industry and describes a pilot implementation demonstrating that the standard and the protocol integrate well. Performance results are given which show that the system works properly.

EVOLUTION CONTROL ENVIRONMENT FOR DISTRIBUTED AUTOMATION COMPONENTS

Abstract Future manufacturing is envisioned to be highly flexible and adaptable. New technologies for efficient engineering of reconfigurable systems and their adaptations are preconditions for this vision. Without such solutions, engineering adaptations of Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) will exceed the costs of engineered systems by far and the reuse of equipment will become inefficient. Especially the reconfiguration of control applications is not sufficiently solved by State-of-the-Art technology. This paper gives an overview of the use of evolution applications for downtimeless system evolution of control applications on basis of the standard IEC 61499. A new approach for the reconfiguration of IEC 61499 based control applications and the corresponding modeling is discussed. This new method significantly increases engineering efficiency and reuse in component-based IPMCS.

Enhanced engineering of down timeless system evolution by use of hardware capability descriptions within the εCEDAC approach

Downtimeless evolution of distributed automation systems (changes during runtime) sets high demands on the underlying concepts and methodologies. Within the εCEDAC project a sophisticated description of the underlying system, including state information as well as capabilities of the hardware, is used. In combination with an engineering tool it offers a great amount of engineering support, thus keeping the complexity manageable. This paper illustrates the application of this technology especially for evolution engineering. Herein, the εCEDAC approach provides a mean for checking the correctness of the process of downtimeless evolution by use of a reconfiguration application.