The culture of product design is shifting from case-by-case development to the Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) paradigm facilitating knowledge sharing and reusing among different stages and groups. The Semantic Web stack including Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) offers promising formats to represent data and rules for engineering knowledge sharing and reuse. However, many KBE applications for product design treat ontology-based knowledge bases as graph databases, often neglecting the reasoning abilities provided by the Semantic Web stack. Consequently, design rules, especially those concerning the (re)construction of geometric models, are frequently encapsulated as black-box processes within KBE systems. This type of reuse tends to result in non-cohesive solutions, where fragments of relevant knowledge, especially about the (re)construction of geometric models, are dispersed across various locations. This article demonstrates an approach to realizing the automated product design facilitated by semantically representing engineering knowledge using OWL and SWRL. This approach enables the construction of a cohesive knowledge base, leveraging the reasoning capabilities provided by the Semantic Web stack. Notably, the (re)construction of geometric models can be achieved using KBE language code snippets and the string processing capabilities of SWRL. To demonstrate this approach, a shaft design case, frequently used in research on product design, serves as a demonstrator to provide conceptual proof. The resulting geometric models are generated in KBE languages compatible with Siemens NX and AVEVA design software and can be visualized through interaction with the Computer-aided Design (CAD) kernel. This showcases the potential for seamless integration and knowledge sharing in the realm of product design through the application of the Semantic Web stack and KBE.

Automation of engineering tasks requires the integration of multidisciplinary knowledge. That knowledge should ideally be expressed in a machine-processable format to enable computer automation of tasks. In this paper, we will seek to build a knowledge-based engineering (KBE) system for building design. We will illustrate how the knowledge of buildings can be integrated and extensively (re-)used in building design. The contribution of the paper is to demonstrate how to build such KBE systems following an object-oriented approach. We demonstrate a solution using Siemens NX CAD software and its APIs. However, the approach can also be followed with many other modern CAD tools having the relevant API support.

A course of Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) deals with formalization of engineering knowledge to be used by computers to support automation in product design. For example, a KBE system can propose different variations of a product depending on knowledge it has and the objectives and/or constraints coming from a customer. The KBE system is supposed to (automatically) match customer expectations with suggested product design respecting the expectations. Within the KBE course, we teach how to create such KBE systems. Based on our experience acquired during the teaching of the course, we suggest that software architectures used to build KBE systems contain a good inspiration and proposal to organize the teaching of students with different backgrounds and skill-sets. Loosely-coupled service-oriented architectures used for developing among others the KBE systems can be a good reference for organizing and teaching multidisciplinary engineering courses. The focus of such courses understandably shifts towards interfaces and integration in-between various disciplines or modules. This creates an opportunity for students also to look to other disciplines and sometimes to find the same methods used in other disciplines, thus, also to learn better their own discipline thanks and through the comparison. This paper presents lessons learned from the KBE course. The paper proposes an approach for organizing multidisciplinary engineering courses to address different backgrounds of students facilitating learning for them. The article explores ways for bringing to the course and validating new knowledge acquired by some of course students sharing that knowledge with the rest of the course students and teachers. Also, the paper addresses Questions of course modularisation Including the following: i) How to define “good” boundaries for a module? ii) How to check which modules work best for given students? iii) How to maintain modules well and provide customizable paths? iv) What are the associated costs for trying to implement course modularisation?

Smart manufacturing solutions require well-informed decisions at the engineering stage. Such decisions be-come possible when the users may have the right tools at the right time. As there may be different tool preferences among engineers in different problem domains or also organizations working within the same problem domain, the interactions between the people working on a common project can be hindered as they need to agree first on the toolset. Thus, supporting different tools and formats can be a valuable asset in engineering projects. This paper presents an approach for building an interoperable solution to be able to support different engineering tools. The approach is illustrated using a pipe routing application based on genetic algorithm (GA) and A* algorithm. The output can be handled by end users in web browser, Siemens NX and AVEVA tools. The solution can also be extended to include other tools. The evaluation of the proposed approach is conducted using a qualitative metric that considers the three dimensions of the system development methodology. Through this paper, the benefit is demonstrated that the utilization of semantic data in engineering design can enhance the interoperability of design software tools.

Digital twins serve as a source of new insights about industrial processes and systems performance and enable the use of cutting-edge technologies for their optimization. Solution vendors offer a variety of tools for digital twin implementation. As the amount of such solutions grows, the need to integrate and navigate the variety of digital twins in large-scale systems arises. The complexity of modern industrial systems requires an approach, where the integration process will happen in an organized way, allowing engineers to make informed decisions and communicate clearly project goals and transfer them into actual design and solution.This work presents results from investigating the applicability of concepts, building blocks, and engineering processes for Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) standards to perform such tasks. It provides an example of integration between two simulation tools used for digital twin development and illustrates how DIS aligns with such a development process.

Automation and the use of robots for welding operations is an important research topic. Being able to automate and, thus, save time for setting up and using robotic welding for complex, large-scale structures made of reflective materials, such as aluminium, will provide clear economic and competitive advantages. However, challenges coming from the ability to accurately detect and calibrate the robot for a given physical workpiece in addition to noises, such as the reflections, make it hard to develop and demonstrate a feasible automation solution. This paper proposes combining laser line scanning technology with CAD-based analysis of a workpiece geometry to support the identification of relevant elements of the workpiece in the physical world and thus support welding operations. An extendable trigger definition method is proposed to identify features of interest in a workpiece. The method can potentially support the execution of welding sequences, which in our case can be represented as a sequence of triggers that have to be observed and followed at the robot runtime to weld the workpiece together.

The integration and application of different AI methods such as, neural networks, fuzzy logic, ontology, genetic algorithms, and nearest neighbor help to solve distinct challenges in the product design process. Overall, these give the ability to adapt quickly to market or product changes and make each step of the production process exchange information thus the cooperative work results in an efficient and smooth process. In this paper, we overview the state of the art of different AIdriven product design methods and classify them according to the selected five schools of thought. We discuss their usage depending on the application for the product design process.

While industry vastly undergoes digitalization, knowledge-based engineering becomes a powerful tool, helping enterprises to operate in context of shorter product life cycles and complex value chains. However, there are several challenges to be addressed in order to make knowledge-based engineering a common industry practice. There is a need for affordable tools, trained professionals, and extended use of outcomes of knowledge-based engineering processes beyond design phase of product life cycle. This article describes how web-based system delivering mobile augmented reality experience in browser may leverage results of product design process implemented with knowledge-based engineering tools in order to integrate information, and support its integrity and consistency for different stakeholders along the product life cycle. The approach relies on use of open standards and libraries in order to insure affordability and ease of integration, which is necessary for wider adoption of knowledge-based engineering among small and medium enterprises.

Industry 4.0 aims at the promotion of design and manufacture automation to provide customized products. Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) is seen as a competitive way to realise design automation. This paper first introduces the Methodology and software tools Oriented to Knowledge-Based engineering Application (MOKA) method to develop an KBE application integrated with external calculators. Then a simple case of the wood-to-wood connection with different fasteners providing the connection capacity is demonstrated, showing the advantages to establish a model in parametric method integrated with external services. Meanwhile, this case shows the shortcomings of the integration of the current tools representing knowledge in different frameworks. Then a potential better way to integrate engineering knowledge is discussed.

In order to stay competitive in the global market, industrial manufacturers are implementing various methods to improve the production processes. This requires measuring important metrics and making use of performance measurement systems. Based on the data generated in manufacturing operations, various indicators can be defined and measured. These indicators serve as the basis for decision-making, control and health monitoring of a manufacturing process. In this paper an approach is presented that makes use of key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPIs used are defined in a standard known as, ISO 22400 Automation systems and integration-Key performance indicators (KPIs) that is usually applied for management of manufacturing operations. The approach uses the database of a production line to define KPIs and generates a tool for visualizing them. The KPIs are defined using a data model of Key Performance Indicator Markup Language (KPI-ML), which is an XML utilization of the ISO 22400 standard. The recommended approach paves a way for constructing generic KPI-ML visualization tools serving various industries to assess their performance with the same tool.

Offering efficacious instruction for production based technical education to provide adequate hands-on training has always been a growing concern in technical universities. This paper proposes the use of Digital Twins as a tool for training students on production based systems and justifies the proposition by instantiating learning theories within a pedagogical digital twin framework. Further, the paper investigates how situational awareness can be beneficial in such an environment and its contribution to the overall learning experience.

Humans are intelligent species good at abstracting, conceptualizing and, eventually, solving complex problems. The art of manufacturing requires different skills ranging from the design of a product to the organization of manufacturing process itself. As a product goes between being an intangible concept and a produced physical item in the hands of a customer, many data, information, knowledge and wisdom (DIKW) are created or refined. The article shows how smart manufacturing systems can be designed following the DIKW paradigm. Corresponding technologies and standards are identified and exemplified for all the levels of the DIKW pyramid.

The Virtual Enterprise (VE) as a state-of-the-art concept aims to form a coalition by integrating various enterprises temporarily, to complete the common goal by leveraging the capabilities and competencies of alliance members. To achieve this, the latest technologies are required for the implementation of VE concept. Internet of Things (IoT) can be seen as a key enabler for VE regarding its powerful capabilities, which allow Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to leverage the ubiquitous services within the VE. In this paper, the focus is on the opportunities of utilization of IoT -based digital senses by SMEs for the virtual enterprise. The paper also introduces a modular architecture for the proposed solution, which can be employed for the flawless implementation of VE. The non-disruptiveness nature of the proposed solution allows SMEs to integrate the module with the existing system without disturbing the ongoing processes within the enterprise.

In manufacturing engineering, the necessity for the development of effective learning experiences that inspire enduring production related competencies cannot be stressed enough. Of late, with advances of the IT sector and the growth of computational power of modern computer systems, it has become possible to build software-intensive complex systems. Breakthroughs in information and communication technologies now mean that technologies that were elusive for mainstream adoption are now finding place in non-mainstream domains which can prove advantageous. One such application is proposed in this paper. The concept of Digital Twins has been around for decades. It has found applications in diverse sectors including healthcare, aerospace and manufacturing. However it has not found an application in the education sector yet. This paper investigates the use of Digital Twins for fostering the education process of flexible manufacturing systems based on a sound pedagogical theory, i.e., Kolbs Experiential Learning. An use case of the proposed framework is presented and later discussed.

The overall manufacturing process for a product can be composed of different phases and tasks. Each task can be seen having its own recipe or set of steps to follow and parameters to apply. The ways to represent these phases and tasks can be different depending on the level within the automation pyramid (shop floor / manufacturing execution / enterprise resource planning). This article proposes an approach to unify representations and therefore interconnections of various components of the manufacturing plants. PackML is used as a representation language of state machines for different components. The article describes a tool chain needed for developing and deploying the components to automate manufacturing sites. The use of the approach makes it possible to holistically represent production sites revealing interdependencies between different phases and tasks at the shop floor.

In future industrial environments, the Internet of things (IoT) paradigm will be leveraged to monitor the activity of assets to thereby enhance the productivity and agility of an enterprises performance. In the IoT concept, any physical object can be incorporated into the IoT and connected to the Internet. Thus, the IoT will comprise a wide range of heterogeneous devices, each using its own protocol for the exchange of data. The incorporation of such a large number of heterogeneous entities within the IoT system represents a challenge to the successful implementation of a complete IoT solution. To solve the heterogeneity problem in the IoT domain, an architecture must be developed that bridges the gap between the physical devices and the higher levels of IoT services. In this paper, we propose an ontological approach that integrates devices featuring a variety of different protocols and establishes connectivity within the IoT ecosystem.

Human operators play an important role especially in high added value manufacturing. The use of knowledge representation for decision making at runtime becomes more important. Modern automatic control systems should be capable to seamlessly include and assist operators. This paper describes how to represent information on operator's skills and include it into service-oriented orchestration approach for a production line. This approach allows operator to act not as a passive element, but as active asset for the orchestration engine to consider in production plans.

Virtualization has become a supportive approach for simulating system behaviour efficiently thanks to the revolution of computer and smart devices. In fact, the employment of running virtual tools that mimic the real physical world is nowadays a requirement in some fields as in e.g. industrial automation. This research work presents a virtual tool that simulates a real assembly line. The main features of this simulator are listed as; web application that can be accessed with any devices that supports html web pages, animated application that provides a UI for the user, discovery mechanism that allows web applications to interact with the simulator automatically and RESTful-based services, which increases the flexibility and versatility in terms of deployment. FASTory simulator has been developed and deployed during the eScop project. In addition, presented simulator has been employed by C2NET (Cloud Collaborative Manufacturing Networks) project for development some of its tools. Furthermore, the exploitation of the FASTory simulator is extended to cover as well the education of next generation of engineers for design and implementation of modern CPS. As Tampere University of Technology provides a M.Sc. degree in automation engineering, students use the simulator for their experiments, ensuring that mistakes are recoverable and harmless.

Manufacturing execution systems play an important role of bridging high-level enterprise functions and production or manufacturing operations. The embedded systems are usually in charge of controlling execution of the operations. Modern embedded systems have become capable of simultaneous and deterministic execution of control algorithms and IP-based communication, making it possible to create complex cyber-physical systems (CPSs), where the computational and communication resources of a device can be used directly for various control, supervisory, or monitoring functions. The complexity for defining open-knowledge-driven manufacturing execution system (OKD-MES) is in maintaining awareness of overall system state to avoid disruptive actions as various functions may be requested from a system. The problem is that obtaining such information on system state may necessitate collecting data from a number of devices, as there may not be a single data point for state information. This paper describes and illustrates an approach for designing OKD-MES on top of CPSs that controls robot workstations and conveyor-based transportation system of a pallet-based production system.

Due to the current business requirements, the manufacturing industry is striving to reduce design, development and commissioning time of production systems to manufacture new products in a timely manner. The use of new technologies such as virtual engineering, automatic code generation and knowledge-based approaches is being extensively researched. This paper presents a framework that utilizes a knowledge-based approach to automate the component mapping in the code generation process. The raw data is taken from simulation models of manufacturing systems developed in 3D based virtual engineering tools. Moreover, a prototype implementation is presented and the results are discussed.

The incessant need of the industry to optimize processes due to market demands derived in a huge investment on information communication technologies implementation during last decades, in the industrial automation domain. This caused the implementation of paradigms as service-oriented or event-driven architectures in factories, used for wide data integration. Moreover, the use of knowledge representation, within ontologies, permitted the description of system status in knowledge bases, which can be queried and updated at runtime. Due to the massive occurrence of events at any location of the enterprise, complex event processing (CEP) technologies can be used for anticipating facts that can compromise the production at shop floors. In fact, recent implementations on processing and reasoning streams of events in the Semantic Web can be applied also in the industrial automation domain because they combine CEP and SPARQL, which are technologies nowadays used by factory systems. This article describes how these technologies can support the study of the ontological system models evolution through time and an approach to bring predictability to current knowledge-based systems.

Demand for efficiency in the domain of manufacturing increases driven by competition for resources and customers. Adaptation of the modern concepts which have proven their benefits in other domains to the automation of manufacturing systems provides a field for innovation. Recent developments in Cyber-Physical Systems, Service-oriented Architecture and Knowledge-Driven Approach suggest an ecosystem for contemporary factory. Such set of concepts is applied in the eScop project for implementation of Open Knowledge-Driven Manufacturing Execution System (OKD-MES). The Knowledge-Driven approach introduces new possibilities for efficient operation of the system, but also requires significant effort to describe knowledge about the system. Significant part of this knowledge may be provided by the equipment in the factory shop floor. The approach which facilitates the process of population of knowledge base using the data from manufacturing equipment in automated manner should lower the cost and the organizational threshold for introduction of OKD-MES to the industry. This paper evaluates the possibilities for extraction of required semantic data from the descriptions provided by the smart service-oriented manufacturing equipment.

Traditionally state machines are implemented by coding the desired behavior of a given system. This work proposes the use of ontological models to describe and perform computations on state machines by using SPARQL queries. This approach represents a paradigm shift relating to the customary manner in which state machines are stored and computed. The main contribution of the work is an ontological model to represent state machines and a set of generic queries that can be used in any knowledge-driven state machine to compute valuable information. The approach was tested in a study case were the state machines of industrial robots in a manufacturing line were modeled as ontological models and used for monitoring the behavior of these devices on real time.

This paper describes the development of a multiple ontology workspace management system and its performance assessment. This management system provides users with their own ontology workspace as a repository. It aims to facilitate the storage and manipulation of ontology models for knowledge driven manufacturing execution systems. The system uses Jena TDB API to maintain the file system on the server and utilizes Spring framework to provide RESTful Web services to expose functionalities to the users such as user account creation, ontology model upload and SPARQL query services. Besides the Web interface for the interaction between the user and the system, the system also provides Web service endpoints that are compatible with other query engines based on Graph Store HTTP Protocol defined in standard SPARQL 1.1. User authentication is also introduced in the system in order to keep the privacy and integrity of the user data. In the end the performance is tested to evaluate its usability. The developed system offers adequate performance for a large number of users and enables the users to store and retrieve information of ontology anywhere as long as internet is available. As the result, it improves the availability of ontology as an important role in knowledge representation, knowledge acquisition and knowledge driven manufacturing systems.

Web services are widely used for enterprise software development. Web service protocols simplify application integration thanks to interface description that can be processed at runtime and, in addition, due to mature and widely used standards for transportation and internetworking. Implementation of service-oriented architecture starts to get acceptance in the field of industrial automation ranging from international research project to the first implementations in industry including first commercial controller devices supporting web service communication protocols and executing deterministic control at the same time. The current research step is to allow knowledge-based integration of industrial automation systems and to exploit full potentials of run-time reconfiguration and adaptation of industrial systems. This paper demonstrates implementation of knowledge-based industrial system, the architecture and ontology model that can be generalized for implementation of other production systems.

Software agents controlling production devices must maintain an up-to-date view of the physical world state in order to efficiently reason and plan their actions. Especially in a factory automation system, the world state undergoes rapid evolution, and the world view must remain synchronized with the changes. This paper discusses two approaches to updating the world view based on event notifications sent by web services representing production devices in a manufacturing system. One of the approaches is based on separately specified update rules, and one automatically uses the semantic web service descriptions formulated in OWL-S. While this paper specifically focuses on the factory automation domain, the approaches presented are applicable to other domains as well.

This paper presents an approach to using semantic web services in managing production processes. In particular, the devices in the production systems considered expose web service interfaces through which they can then be controlled, while semantic web service descriptions formulated in web ontology language for services (OWL-S) make it possible to determine the conditions and effects of invoking the web services. The approach involves three web services that cooperate to achieve production goals using the domain web services. In particular, one of the three services maintains a semantic model of the current state of the system, while another uses the model to compose the domain web services so that they jointly achieve the desired goals. The semantic model of the system is automatically updated based on event notifications sent by the domain services.

For decades, enterprise modeling has been one of the key elements in enterprise engineering and integration. The article aims to provide a solution on enterprise modeling for industrial systems following PERA (Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture). Description of PERA is provided in the introduction of the paper. Comparison is made between the case study — FESTO Line and its reference model — Multi FMS Line. The work tracks of the processes in typical PERA master plans, demonstrating the full use of PERA knowledge in industrial systems.

Standard industrial robots offer limited capabilities for implementing free shape paths, nevertheless future industrial robotics application might require features like this. This paper demonstrates how to implement free shape paths in standard manipulators by using Bezier curves. Bezier curves descriptors can be stored as robot position points and later interpolated by using the De Casteljaus algorithm within the robot controller. With this technique is possible to have complex paths by transferring and storing a little amount of data points. The approach was tested in a SCARA robot. Due to the simplicity of the De Casteljaus algorithm and the common point storage mechanism, this method can be implemented in most of the industrial robots.

Identifying the significant and most needed information in huge enterprises at the right time not only helps in decision making, but also plays an important role in overall performance and profit making of enterprises. Complex Event Processing (CEP) is a developing method of processing different events from multiple sources and filtering them to produce complex events. This paper provides a methodology to model CEP using Timed Net Condition Event System (TNCES), a Petri Nets derived formalism. Petri Nets is a graphical, mathematical modelling language used to analyze and describe discrete-event dynamic systems. The biggest advantage of representing CEP in TNCES is that it opens paths to the validation of the events filtering and decision making in different level of enterprise.

Automation industry is moving towards more complex systems which are posing new challenges for operation from both machine and human perspectives. A group of challenges is related to management of the overwhelming information flow and to usability of the systems, and context-aware solutions have been recently introduced to the automation field in order to cope with challenges of this kind. The context awareness is seen as a solution which would allow to both the technological system and the human operator to infer the optimal decisions and to behave in the most effective way. In order to reach this capability, the external physical world and the system must be described in a way both interprétable for humans and machines. Ambition of this paper is to contribute to the context-aware (re)configuration of the system with a tool, which is designed to improve the efficiency of the configuration phase of a context-aware system. The tool provides a solution to configure and model the field devices of a system via automatically generated ontologies. This research is a part of a device management framework for a building automation use case, which is targeting to support controlling decisions of dwellers, technical support and social services.

Edwards-Venn Diagrams (EVD) were introduced to facilitate knowledge representation and reasoning in connectionistic approach for modeling industrial systems. Semantic descriptions are seen helpful in solving the challenges of mass customization due to capability to capture knowledge interpretable both for humans and machines. However modern knowledge technologies could not provide required flexibility in expressing the semantics of dynamical nature of events and processes which are essential for industrial systems. This motivates further research for flexible yet formal tools for knowledge representation and reasoning. In order to provide flexible semantic descriptions to dynamic qualities of industrial systems, a connectionistic knowledge model — connectionistic concept grid (CCG) — was introduced, which was inspired by natural knowledge structure derived from connectionism approach to natural cognition. EVD were found useful to represent relations among different sets of concepts in CCG and to provide structural reasoning in the models.

Traditionally, the application of services can be attributed to so-called office automation. While opening new horizons in software development life cycle, web services have gained increased attention in other domains as well, including the domain of factory automation (software development for factory automation). Coming from pure software to the physical realm involving industrial equipment, the application of web services sets some additional demands for these domains where no simple roll-back or application recovery procedures can easily be implemented due to operations on the states in the physical world. This paper discusses orchestration of web services with BPEL and a set of software tools for developing BPEL processes considered for a simple case study. The example is taken from the domain of factory automation in order to highlight some of the main issues arising during the process of service orchestration.

Formal validation of the industrial systems requires new ways to make this process more user-friendly. The usability of formal methods can be increased by employing new analysis techniques. This paper describes a method to evaluate system state spaces. The system state space or reachability graph is considered as a finite structure that can be manipulated to provide more readable result. Therefore the structural reasoner tool also presented in the paper simplifies an analysis of the system. It can be seen as an addition to the traditional methods such as a model-checking.

System engineering process supported by the formal methods should improve the quality of the developed product. Here, a single step in formalization of industrial programming is highlighted together with its place in the whole framework for formal validation of industrial systems. This paper describes an algorithm of translating statement list language to the timed net condition/event systems that forms a controller model. Thus controller models can be generated for the industrial automated systems implemented in statement list.

The IEC 61499 (function block) standard proposes an open architecture for distributed industrial-process measurement and control systems (IPMCS). The IEC 61499 defines the basic concepts and methodology for the design of modular reusable distributable systems, and paves the way for the new reconfigurable and flexible manufacturing. This paper presents the development of a software tool (IEC 61499 application generator) and its application to a closed loop control system, using an inverted pendulum as a testbed. The application generator enables the deployment of IEC 61499 applications to scan-based embedded controllers. The paper describes an approach to implement an event-based architecture on a scan-based industrial controller and its application to a closed loop control system

The acceptance of formal methods in industry is a challenging task mainly due to difficult learning process and the lack of the tools and methods helping control engineer to interpret the results of formal verification procedure. We model existing source code of the controller and controller related information (controller model) along with controlled object (plant model) and verify modeled system by means of model-checking. This paper focuses on the issues related to controller and plant modeling. Ladder logic modeling is discussed along with the problems related to the plant modeling

This paper addresses formal validation of distributed logic controllers represented in Visual Flowchart Language (VFL) that is a high-level programming language used in industrial automation. Traditional validation approaches based on simulation become obsolete in reconfigurable manufacturing systems where complex machines have decentralized control and are built by reuse of components. The source code based validation is also important for OEMs to unify their development procedures from embedded systems to machine controllers. For modeling the VFL design we used net condition/event systems (NCES) - a modular formalism developed for modeling systems with distributed states such as closed-loop control systems in distributed mechatronic devices. The methodology was implemented in software tools automatically generating the model's modules given the controller's source code. Then the hierarchical NCES model is assembled into a place/transition net that is subjected to model checking. The proposed approach facilitates integration of formal validation into software/hardware development in control systems' engineering.