A novel concept for a configurable robotic system is presented, addressing the complexities inherent in aircraft production processes. The proposed architecture encompasses three fundamental components: (1) a robot abstraction layer that enables integration of heterogeneous robot vendors; (2) a behavior framework based on a reconfigurable industrial control system, eliminating the need for reprogramming when adapting to new tasks, and (3) a standardized service interface that enables uniform supervision and control of robotic services. The implementation leverages standardized protocols, specifically SRCI for robot abstraction and MTP for providing service interfaces. The system’s adaptability is enhanced by a reconfigurable industrial control system.

This contribution presents a mechanism for highly automated integration of flexible transport systems into modular production-related logistics systems based on the Module Type Package concept. The functionality of the transport system is represented by MTP-based Transport Order Services. These form a common broker with an uniform interface for interaction between logistics modules and the transport system. Thus, project-specific adjustments can be avoided. This concept has been implemented and successfully evaluated using a modular palletizing system.

To address the need for flexibility of production plants in the process industry modularization is a widely accepted approach. In particular, the Module Type Package Concept described in VDI/VDE/NAMUR 2658 is seen as a possible core part for modularization. A clear separation of engineering efforts into plant-independent module engineering and plant-specific integration engineering as well as a fast integration of a module’s automation system into a higher-level process control system changes the fundamental automation architecture. However, in the state-of-the-art technical literature which has been analyzed and applied by the authors, few security considerations are made for modularization and especially the Module Type Package. This is even more problematic considering that even with an extensive field of security analysis, standards, and guidelines to secure conventional operational technology recent reports found severe vulnerabilities in those. This paper elaborates on security standards and guidelines to which the Module Type Package Concept should be compliant to achieve a high coverage regarding security requirements in the context of industrial automation and control systems. Based on this a security analysis of the Module Type Package Concept is performed on the IEC 62443, VDI/VDE 2182, and NIST SP 800-82.

Modularization involves separating system functionality into individual modular units, which must subsequently be associated again using suitable methods. This results in the desired flexibility and adaptability of future production systems. In this context, two association mechanisms are distinguished - orchestration and choreography. While orchestration approaches are well established in many automation applications, choreography is a rather new method for associating automation functions. When evaluating choreographies in the process industry, it has become apparent that not all subsystems participating in a choreography may be choreography-enabled. Thus, this contribution presents an extension of the already published choreography pattern for industrial automation including orchestration capabilities into a choreography. In this way, also non-choreography-enabled subsystems can participate in a choreography. This opens up a further degree of freedom and thus increases the flexibility and adaptability of production systems.

This paper examines the coordination of physically linked packaging lines based on so-called Automation Service Choreographies. For this purpose, an exemplary packaging line is considered, which is automated in a service-based manner according to the Module Type Package (MTP) concept. To coordinate the modules of this line, they exchange relevant system variables by means of direct module-to-module communication. Each module additionally contains module-internal rules that describe how its behavior depends on the incoming information. It is shown that in this way a distributed coordination of the packaging line can be achieved. In addition, a second interface is presented, by which the packaging line as a whole can be integrated into a higher-level system.

Critical infrastructure systems are usually widely distributed and integrated into a central control system. The connection is established using telecontrol protocols. Today, the integration of so-called remote terminal units is mostly done manually or partially automated. However, there is still potential and demand for optimizing these integration processes. With the help of the Module Type Package, the integration can be implemented completely automatically. For this purpose, this contribution introduces a model extension of the MTP CommunicationSet for the description of the IEC 60870-5-104 telecontrol protocol. Thus, the Module Type Package concept can be used for the integration of remote terminal units.

Service-oriented automation systems play a key role in the context of modular production systems. Modular production systems can be build up from Process Equipment Assemblies (PEAs). PEA-spanning Automation Service Associations are able to increase the degree of adaptability in modular production systems. Their former implementation using central orchestration was subject to some limiting constraints. In this contribution, a choreography-based mechanism for Automation Service Association is presented, that represents a serious alternative to the central orchestration. The presented mechanism for Automation Service Choreographies consists of three software patterns which can be used in combination to meet the identified requirements. The software patterns as well as first implementation experiences with programmable logic controllers are presented.