This paper explores a multi-agent reinforcement learning approach for real-time control of HVAC systems during demand response events. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are major energy consumers on cruise ships. At the same time, the large time constants of HVAC systems make them a strong candidate for demand response, as energy consumption can be adjusted with delayed effects on occupant comfort. However, this inherent slowness also makes control a complex and challenging task. Additional factors, such as solar heat load, significantly affect cabin temperature, thus complicating the control strategy. Since actions in chillers and air handling units influence fan coil units, optimization must be done holistically.

This paper proposes a streamlined framework for commissioning process systems using open standards such as Data Exchange in the Process Industry, Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture and IEC 61499. The proposed workflow focusses on the automatic generation of Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture entry points and software generation, enabling interoperability across different platforms while maintaining a vendor-neutral approach. This approach reduces manual engineering efforts while minimising the risks of inconsistencies in the data. Moreover, the proposed workflow is scalable and capable of adapting to future industrial needs and digital transformation while reducing the time to market of process systems. The proposed workflow is validated through a case study that involves the commissioning of a water process demonstrator. This case highlights how the use of open standards and vendor-neutral approaches can streamline design workflows, minimise manual engineering tasks and improve flexibility and interoperability across the entire process lifecycle. The paper also identifies limitations within current engineering tools and offers recommendations to further enhance the commissioning in the process industry.

The cruise ship industry is under increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as international regulations define ambitious requirements and goals for modern cruise ships. One of the most significant consumers of energy onboard cruise ships are their Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. However, the energy optimization of HVAC systems is challenging, as they are impacted by a number of uncontrolled variables, such as changing weather conditions, passenger behavior, and the demands of other significant energy consumers, such as propulsion systems. Reinforcement Learning (RL) is often used to tackle such complex optimization tasks, however concerns over ensuring the safety of RL optimized systems hinders its adoption in industry, especially in the context of safety-critical systems. This paper presents the initial findings of applying a novel approach to ensure safety in RL: a safety shield developed utilizing a novel hazard analysis method, System-Theoretic Process Analysis. In this work the safety shield is used to both train the RL agent as well as block unsafe behavior in operation. Preliminary findings suggest that blocking unsafe behavior during training hinders the ability to learn a safe RL policy, however, when used in testing the approach is capable of significantly reducing the number of safety violations.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly being used in software development and in applications like code generation. While LLMs can provide significant value in the form of time savings in common programming languages like Python, their usability in generating automation software has yet to be studied extensively. In the context of generating control software in the form of IEC 61131-3 compliant code, initial studies suggest LLMs provide a promising avenue for increasing control engineer productivity. However, similar code generation for IEC 61499-based control applications is still scarce. While tools are being developed for this purpose, their capabilities are not yet fully understood, and they often require significant human input to generate the intended outcomes. This paper explores LLM-based code generation for IEC 61499-based applications through iterative prompting. The prompts for the experiments are derived from requirements generated by System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA), which provides a systematic approach to creating prompts that also connect to the larger systems engineering workflow. The results indicate that while the approach may be successful in some instances, more work is required to mitigate the issues arising from its application.

This paper proposes a method to build plant simulation models by means of IEC 61499 to execute them directly within PLC concurrently with control. This addresses the problems of cost, time, and incompatibility associated with developing plant simulation models using separate software. The proposed approach improves testing and troubleshooting and provides advanced data processing within the control system. It is inspired by Model-View-Control design pattern and was demonstrated with a conveyor system use case. The plant simulation model can function as a real-time monitor or operate in simulation mode.

This paper presents an approach to optimizing the energy cost of heating a building during the cold season using geothermal energy. A building model is developed using the IDA-ICE software and calibrated with real building data for accuracy. The optimization problem is addressed with a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agent, which minimizes overall energy costs by interacting with the building while considering real-time electricity price and weather forecasts. The proposed method adapts to dynamic conditions, ensuring efficient thermal management and occupant comfort. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the DRL-based controller in reducing energy costs compared to the currently used rule-based control strategy while maintaining optimal comfort levels. This work contributes to the advancement of cost-efficient heating strategies for sustainable building energy management.

Industry 4.0 demands intelligent and customized production, driving the upgrade of traditional systems. However, many industrial devices lack source code or documentation, making control program migration highly challenging. This issue is critical for PLC replacement, system modernization, and integration of heterogeneous devices. Recently, large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated strong capabilities in code generation and logical reasoning. When combined with the IEC 61499 standard—known for its modular and event-driven design—LLMs offer new possibilities for automatic control software generation. This paper proposes a method that uses LLMs to transform industrial control logic into IEC 61499-compliant programs. It extracts finite state machines representing software logic, converts them into formal requirements, and generates the IEC 61499 function block with the assistance of LLMs. The method enables efficient, data-driven migration of control software.

The growing need for compliance with sustainability regulations force the adoption of sustainable practices, which consequently establish the need for data sharing for the purpose of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a critical method for evaluating environmental impacts. One key area where these data are essential is in calculating Scope 3 emissions, which can account for up to 90% of an organization’s total carbon footprint and require input from its suppliers or service providers. However, the confidential nature of industrial process data poses a hindrance to data sharing throughout the supply chain. To address this issue, this study explores the use of secure multiparty computation (SMPC) to enable privacy-preserving LCA computations. The performance of various SMPC protocols is evaluated in different security models (dishonest and honest majority, malicious, covert, and semi-honest) and computational domains (arithmetic modulo prime and modulo 2k). The evaluation focuses on key performance factors, such as computation time, data exchange, and communication rounds, using a flat supply chain model. The findings highlight the trade-offs between security, performance, and scalability for different SMPC protocols in the context of LCA. The study demonstrates the feasibility of applying arithmetic circuit-based SMPC for LCA over other protocols.

This paper proposes a novel AI agent for reasoning, planning, and testing industrial automation applications. The AI agent accepts operator instructions in natural language and performs semantic reasoning over functional requirements to generate an optimized cost-effective action plan. This plan comprises a sequence of executable actions that can be deployed in industrial control systems (ICS) to enable efficient and sustainable machine operation. Then the AI agent automates the testing of control systems by comparing the agent’s planned and executed actions against expected outputs, ensuring requirement conformance and enhancing system reliability. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the AI agent in generating sustainable operational plans and validating control system behavior for laboratory scale case studies, underscoring its potential in the future of intelligent industrial automation.

With the growing adoption of the IEC 61499 standard, heterogeneous distributed automation systems have become increasingly feasible in modern industry. Compared to traditional automation systems based on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), IEC 61499 open automation systems could be deployed to various platforms, such as low-cost ARM-based controllers, edge computing nodes, and even cloud servers. This trend raises a critical challenge in distribution optimization of automation software components. In particular, unlike IEC 61131, IEC 61499 supports event-based execution and software-hardware decoupling. It is easier to implement resource-demanding tasks in IEC 61499, such as artificial intelligence and embedded IT software, which makes computing-intensive control software distribution optimization more needed today.This work proposes a framework that optimizes the distribution of various resource-demanding control components in distributed automation systems. By leveraging a script-based auto-benchmarking system, a comprehensive computing performance knowledge base is established. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other distribution combinations, significantly reducing the overall execution time of the system.

Persistently exploring ever more sustainable and economically promising alternative protein sources is a grand challenge that humanity must tackle today. Edible insects, as one long-standing food source for mankind, are attracting considerable attention in both academia and capital markets due to the exacerbated global food crisis and new technological advancements. To massively and safely rear edible insects, all stages in their lifecycle must be carefully engineered, monitored, and controlled. This work aims to first investigate the natural mating and ovipositing behaviors of black soldier flies and then engineer an artificial environment that well suits their needs. In particular, a modularized and scalable facility equipped with dedicated light recipe and climate control has been designed and built. The results of our comparative experiments revealed that black soldier flies in the artificial facility tended to have better mating and oviposition quantitatively and qualitatively as compared to the control group in the nature environment. As a result, this work demonstrated that within a well-controlled and comfortable artificial environment, it is possible and feasible to stably breed black soldier flies in large scale. This paves the foundation for industrialized insect-based bioconversion.

Controlling the crown of hot-rolled strip steel is crucial for product quality, but the imbalance between normal and abnormal samples in production data limits the performance of diagnostic models. In this study, we propose an SNN-ST-CatBoost model that combines the sample pruning method of Sample Nearest Neighbor (SNN) and the self-training (ST) strategy. It focuses on maximizing the value of unlabeled samples after active learning, by pruning to reduce redundant samples, and by using self-training to extend unlabeled data, we can maximize the class value balance of labeled samples and optimize the classification ability of the CatBoost algorithm under data imbalance. The experiment is based on real data from a hot-rolling production line. The results show that compared to traditional models (such as XGBoost and LightGBM), SNN-ST-CatBoost significantly improves in terms of mean average precision, G-mean, and recall rate for the abnormal class, demonstrating its efficient recognition capability for minority class samples. Although the accuracy of the model decreases slightly, its overall diagnostic performance is significantly better than that of existing models.

The significance of virtual commissioning for automation control systems is heightened by their increasing complexity and, frequently, their distributed nature. The authors propose a cloud-based testing framework that facilitates remote execution of tests over the Internet. This allows for collaboration among a variety of stakeholders while optimizing the use of computational resources. This framework is based on a scalable and fault-tolerant architecture, which maintains system responsiveness and efficiency even under concurrent usage by multiple users. The integration of this testing framework with the CloViC cloud virtual commissioning platform further increases its capabilities, providing enhancements to existing project administration, performance monitoring of virtual PLCs, and collaborative analysis across teams and projects, with Kubernetes orchestration optimizing system performance. To validate the proposed methodology, a group of students used the automated testing framework as part of their coursework.

This paper presents the Function Block Assistant (fbAssistant), an LLM-backed tool prototype for developing control logic in industrial automation. fbAssistant interprets natural language requirements and automatically generates state machines and their function blocks implementation. The study demonstrates iterative refinement, simulation validation, and deployment using EcoStruxure Automation Expert. The proposed approach aims at improved efficiency and accuracy in the development of automation software.

The growing global population and the increasing scarcity of arable land highlight the urgent need for reliable and efficient food production systems. With their controlled environments, vertical farms (VFs) offer a promising solution for sustainable food security. Nevertheless, their high energy demands call for innovative approaches to optimize energy consumption while maintaining optimal growing conditions. This paper introduces a novel control-oriented model for VFs, capturing the interactions between crop growth conditions and energy consumption. To address the high energy demand of VFs, the model is integrated into a dynamic energy market characterized by time-varying energy prices and a demand response scheme, which includes a discrete reward to encourage flexible energy consumption. Then, centralized and decentralized receding horizon control approaches are proposed to minimize the energy cost of the VF while ensuring optimal crop growth. Experimental evaluations on real systems of varying scales demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches in reducing costs and ensuring sustainable agricultural practices.

Modernization of currently operational nuclear power plants is becoming increasingly important to maintain their performance and safety. Ensuring the safety of newer Instrumentation and Control (I&C) systems used in modernization efforts requires hazard analysis techniques suitable for the analysis of complex and software-heavy systems. System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) has proven to be a suitable hazard analysis method for these complex I&C systems, however, its practical use is still often limited by its labor-intensive and time-consuming nature, partially due to the limitations of the tools used to perform the analysis: common Office tools such as Microsoft Excel or Visio. Conducting an STPA analysis could be simpler and more attractive with software tools specific to the method. This work introduces the requirements for these software tools and lays the foundation for further work, in which software tools will be evaluated against these requirements.

In this paper, we propose a cloud-based virtual commissioning Web platform for IEC 61499 compliant distributed automation systems that support Create-Read-Update-Delete operations for SoftPLC containers from various versions and provide a remote engineering workstation with an embedded web Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Human Machine Interface (HMI), and 3D simulation models. A water tank use case demonstrates the platform's flexibility, enabling control software testing entirely via a Web browser without local installations.

This work develops a concept of a natural language co-pilot for the creation of IEC 61499 applications to accelerate initial testing and development. The co-pilot addresses the challenge of generating the correct function blocks that can be opened in popular IEC 61499 IDEs. In our case study, we focus on the generation of the centralised controller that operates particular equipment to perform a defined process. In addition, we have developed a scheme for how the co-pilot will be integrated into the FBME IDE as an AI assistant in the next steps. In the discussion, we provide valuable information for future co-pilot developers on the possible problems they might face in this area and how to overcome them.

The pulp and paper industry faces significant en-vironmental challenges, such as air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and wastewater discharge, requiring smarter and more sustainable operations. Regulatory bodies are imposing stringent measures to mitigate these impacts, prompting the industry to adopt sustainable practices and technologies. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models are crucial in this effort, pro-viding a comprehensive evaluation of environmental impacts and aiding decision making for sustainable manufacturing. However, organisations prioritise the confidentiality of their sensitive data, which can hinder collaborative efforts and LCA calculations. This paper addresses organisational requirements for improving confidentiality, tamper-proof data transfer, and ensuring data sovereignty. The ongoing proof-of-concept introduces a novel approach in LCA, employing Secure Multiparty Computation (SMPC) and data spaces to enable confidentiality-preserving LCA. Our solution ensures data sovereignty and accurate LCA calculations, promoting sustainable practices across the value chain. This paper lays the foundation for a collaborative data platform that meets the critical needs of confidentiality, security, and sustainability in the process manufacturing industry.

This paper proposes a framework designed to optimise energy consumption in vertical farming. It aims to maximise cost efficiency by balancing between minimising system operations during the electricity price peaks and the ability to trade capacity on the FCR market while also fulfilling constraints on the internal growing process. We consider that the vertical farming system has distributed control with a series of actuators controlled by various spatially distributed PLCs that we refer to as agents, to underline their independence. The paper conducts two experiments for a lO-agent system with a Pareto controller and a lOO-agent system with a Lagrangian approach and shows the balance between more cost-efficient momentary energy consumption control.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the population of people over 80 years of age is projected to triple by 2050, due to advances in quality of life, as well as continued progress in medicine and technology. With this context in mind, this article focuses on conducting a comprehensive study on conventional walkers, which represent a fundamental tool to improve the mobility of elderly people. The main objective of this study is to establish the foundations for the design of walkers, with the purpose of identifying the functional and end user requirements under the WalkIES project funded by IEEE’s Industrial Electronics Society (IES). In this initial phase, we seek to define the ergonomic design of a conventional walker, evaluating its advantages and disadvantages, in addition to establishing the standards that these devices must meet. Based on the results obtained, the specific characteristics of the WalkIES walker will be determined. Additionally, international manufacturing standards for walkers are examined and detailed, taking into account the specific features necessary to ensure the effectiveness and safety of these devices for elderly people. Special attention is paid to the individual characteristics of each component that makes up the walkers, with the aim of optimizing their functionality and comfort for the user. In summary, the study of walkers and the establishment of standards are essential to address the mobility needs of the elderly population and those who require assistance to walk, guaranteeing their safety, comfort, and quality of life, as well as to define the requirements of design and manufacturing for robotic walker WalkIES.

This paper proposes an extension to IEC 61499 architecture to better support flexibility and reconfigurability of automation systems while reducing communication overhead. The extension concerns adapter connections between function blocks. It aims at improving the performance of popular "one-line engineering" design pattern. The current adapter connections are supporting one-to-one links between function blocks, through which a bi-direction flow of events and data takes place. The proposed extension, called bus, allows many-to-many connections, i.e., several function blocks can be connected to several function blocks sending and receiving events and data simultaneously. Before implementing the extension by means of compiler and editor, it was prototyped using an existing means of IEC 61499, as a composite function block with several inputs - adapter sockets and outputs - adapter plugs. The prototyping shows feasibility of the proposed extension.

With Industry 5.0, prioritizing worker well-being, the integration of human-related data into production processes poses challenges related to data privacy and compliance with regulations such as GDPR. This paper presents a comprehensive approach to anonymizing sensitive data collected from wearable devices. We propose a methodology that combines real-time processing and complex anonymization algorithms, ensuring end-to-end protection. We employ techniques such as normalization, hashing, and feature dropping. Our findings contribute to advancing privacy-preserving techniques in Industry 5.0 and underscore the importance of safeguarding user privacy in the era of advanced manufacturing.

This paper introduces an innovative multiactor framework that harnesses the potential of LLMs to augment the functionalities of ICS. By integrating conversational AI technologies, this framework significantly improves human-machine interactions, enabling sophisticated analysis and visualization of intricate data sets. The core of the system comprises specialized LLM actors that interact through a LangGraph-based multiactor framework, addressing various aspects of IEC 61499 control systems including PLC code analysis, SQL query execution, and data visualization. This integration enables operators to interact with the control system using natural language, significantly reducing technical barriers and enhancing the accessibility and usability of complex industrial systems.

This paper presents a novel framework for testing automation applications compliant with the international standard IEC 61499 and including process simulation. The framework enables automation programs to be run in testing mode faster than real time, validated by an external tester program. Application of the approach is illustrated on example of a simple component-based system.

Formal verification methods like model checking can provide mathematical proofs of design correctness, so their use is justified in applications where safety or reliability requirements are high. A key challenge for the wider adoption of model checking is the effort and expertise needed in formalizing functional requirements into verifiable properties. A particular challenge in specifying formal properties for industrial instrumentation and control (I&C) logics is accounting for the sequencing and timing issues that arise from, e.g., the dynamic behavior of the plant being controlled. In this paper, we evaluate different visual property specification languages that are aimed at making formal methods more accessible. We have collected 3923 formal properties from practical model checking projects in the nuclear and rail traffic industries and identified the most commonly occurring types of properties. Based on the sample data, a real-world example logic, and our practical experience, we identify requirements for a user-friendly property specification language most suited for our specific domain of industrial I&C.

Subsurface flow is the core of reservoir engineering. Research on subsurface flow problems can enhance our understanding of the development status of oilfields, thus enabling the prediction of the distribution of residual oil and the formulation of production plans. Machine learning-based methods have been widely studied in developing data-driven models to solve subsurface flow problem. However, a large amount of labeled data are required to build highly accurate models. It is applicable to embed domain-knowledge into data-driven machine learning methods to reduce data requirements. In this study, we propose a residual-enhanced physics-guided machine learning method with hard constraints (RHC-PGML) to predict reservoir pressure. Specifically, a physics-guided machine learning with hard constraints strategy is proposed, which makes the prediction results strictly satisfy the prior domain knowledge to improve the prediction accuracy of the model. In addition, we integrate residual learning in RHC-PGML model to compensate for systematic errors caused by the inability of the embedded physical mechanism to perfectly describe the complex seepage process and further improve the prediction accuracy. The proposed method is verified by a seepage problem in a heterogeneous reservoir model. The results show that the RHC-PGML method can obtain reliable prediction results in the case of sparse and limited data.

We present an approach for suggesting possible fixes to an overall I&C nuclear architecture during its design phase. Despite the I&C architecture, in our case, being represented with an ontology, we do not aim to change the properties of an ontology per se. Instead, we focus on the subset of ABox triples that do not contain terminological elements in either subject, predicate, or object parts. Such a subset we call the design artifacts. When the ontology is filled with the design artifacts, the analyst runs the check of non-functional requirements using SPARQL queries. The requirements associated with the queries that returned results do not hold. The goal of the current work is to provide support for the next stage when the analyst has to change the design artifacts so that the queries no longer return results. Our method is based on representing the results of queries as graphs, intersecting them, and finding the minimal changes that prevent the results from being mapped on their (or other) queries.

IEC 61499 is an executable, event-based language for control software that allows visual and textual implementation of individual software components (Function Blocks, FBs). The standardized visual service sequence model specifies the expected input/output behaviour of a component, thus supporting model-based testing. We present our approach for testing an FB on various platforms, which helps manage the variations in execution semantics between different vendors. First, service sequences are generated manually or derived from an existing (partial) implementation. Then, these service sequences serve as unit tests for this implementation. Finally, we create a test application that is executable on any IEC 61499-compliant platform. Executing tests directly in the target platform helps validate the correct functionality of an FB before deploying the control software to a cyber-physical system.

Prediction of subsurface oil reservoir pressure are critical to hydrocarbon production. However, the accurate pressure estimation faces great challenges due to the complexity and uncertainty of reservoir. The underground seepage flow and petrophysical parameters (permeability and porosity) are important but difficult to measure in oilfield. Deep learning methods have been successfully used in reservoir engineering and oil & gas production process. In this study, the effective but inaccessible subsurface seepage fields are not used, only the spatial coordinates and temporal information are selected as model input to predict reservoir pressure. A stacked GRU-based deep learning model is proposed to map the relationship between spatio-temporal data and reservoir pressure. The proposed deep learning method is verified by using a three-dimensional reservoir model, and compared with commonly-used methods. The results show that the stacked GRU model has a better performance and higher accuracy than other deep learning or machine learning methods in pressure prediction.

IEC 61499 is an emerging standard for distributed automation which requires well-defined design practises to improve development efficiency. In this paper, we extend the one-line engineering design pattern and provide step-by-step guidelines on its implementation keeping in mind key features of Industry 4.0. The one-line design pattern simplifies the modification of the application structure and the addition of new components to the system without disrupting the existing control application. It also enables easy fault identification and debugging of the system. The design pattern was developed and validated in three different use cases that demonstrated the applicability of the pattern.

This paper presents a methodology for increasing human-centric production systems flexibility using human factors-enabled digital twins. The paper includes an analysis of the relevant projects that incorporate human-related data collection and processing. The proposed system is capable of collecting human factors-related data from various sources and then use a decision-making algorithm to schedule the tasks according to assessed human operator conditions in real-time. The formed Digital Twin is able to depict the condition of the labourer and production system status in real-time using Visual Components simulation environment. Shown results prove that existing production systems are capable of adapting to the changing condition of the worker flexibly, optimising workflow, distributing tasks with AGVs and cobots, and applying changes in workplace ergonomics to achieve better safety and performance of the worker.

We present an approach for suggesting possible repairs for the control logic of I&C systems implemented in the form of function block diagrams (FBDs) during the design phase. Each FBD has a set of functional requirements formulated using linear temporal logic (LTL). To ensure the correctness of the implementation, an FBD is translated into SMV, the language of the NuSMV model checker, which verifies the model against its properties. If a property does not hold, NuSMV generates a counterexample. In previous works, we developed methods on visual counterexample explanation using both, the failing LTL formula and the FBD itself. The current work continues in this direction and utilizes the results of the counterexample explanation to suggest fixes to the FBD considering the failed properties and the whole set of requirements. We propose three strategies for fixes generation and experiment on the examples of the logic from the nuclear domain.

Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are a key factor in smart grids, and they use cloud computing to integrate and manage Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). VPPs use Machine Learning (ML) methods to optimize various tasks. Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) methodology is a set of techniques that targets to develop, deploy and maintain ML applications smoothly on production. Cloud design patterns (CDPs) are general reusable solutions for common cloud problems that can improve the reliability, scalability, and quality of cloud applications. This paper discusses how CDPs can help in building complex ML applications on cloud with MLOps practices which can help VPPs to optimize their workloads. The paper also provides an example implementation on a public cloud provider.

Green modular datacentres are a new class of datacentres which can reduce the carbon footprints of the datacentre industry which accounts for close to 1% of total energy use worldwide. Green modular datacentres can operate as a prosumer and contribute energy to the energy grid through participation in the energy market as a part of the energy community. This paper investigates the interoperability of the datacentre in the energy community by proposing an IEC 61850 Logical Device model for a green modular datacentre. The applicability of the datacentre model is demonstrated through the re-implementation of the Energy Management System of an edge datacentre installation with the proposed IEC 61850 Logical Device model and its logical implementation in IEC 61499.

A learning management system (LMS) is a web-based technology developed to improve the learning process in educational institutions. This study addresses the drawbacks of existing LMS by developing DeLMS (Decentralized Learning Management System) and aims to revolutionize the way educational institutions manage and deliver educational content using Ethereum smart contracts and the IPFS (InterPlanetary File System). By leveraging Smart contracts and IPFS cutting-edge technologies, DeLMS provides a secure, transparent and decentralized platform for managing and delivering educational content. The content addressing feature of IPFS eliminates the need for constant requests to centralized servers for the location of files, resulting in faster file transfer and reduced energy consumption. The proposed system has the potential to change the way educational institutions operate, making it more accessible and beneficial for both students and educators.

Flatness is a crucial indicator of strip quality that presents a challenge in regulation due to the high-speed process and the nonlinear relationship between flatness and process parameters. Conventional methods for controlling flatness are based on the first principles, empirical models, and predesigned rules, which are less adaptable to changing rolling conditions. To address this limitation, this paper proposed an offline reinforcement learning (RL) based data-driven method for flatness control. Based on the data collected from a factory, the offline RL method can learn the process dynamics from data to generate a control policy. Unlike online RL methods, the proposed method does not require a simulator for training, the policy can be potentially safer and more accurate since a simulator involves simplifications that can introduce bias. To obtain a steady performance, the proposed method incorporated ensemble Q-functions into policy evaluation to address uncertainty estimation. To address distributional shifts, based on Q-values from ensemble Q-functions, behavior cloning was added to policy improvement. Simulation and comparison results showed that the proposed method outperformed the state-of-the-art offline RL methods and achieved the best performance in producing strips with lower flatness.

In this paper, we describe a method to automatically derive the controller for an automated process by an interactive learning approach using a simulation model developed in Visual Components 3D simulation software. The latter is used to record the events of the processes and the controller is generated as an IEC 61499 function block. To create different process scenarios, the actuator signals are triggered manually in appropriate order. The controller logic in Petri net is derived by process discovery algorithms with help of recorded events and conversion of Petri net to IEC 61499 function blocks is done by a software tool configured with a set of transformation rules.

Contemporary data centres consume electricity on an industrial scale and require control to improve energy efficiency and maintain high availability. The article proposes an idea and structure of the framework supporting development and validation of the multi-agent control for the energy-efficient data centre. The framework comprises two subsystems: the modelling toolbox and the controlling toolbox. This work focuses on such essential components of the controlling toolbox, as an individual controller. The reinforcement learning approach is applied to the controllers’ implementation. The server fan controller, named SF agent, is implemented based on the framework infrastructure and reinforcement learning approach. The agent’s capability of energy-saving is demonstrated.

With increase in use formal verification tools and methods in distributed systems, it is becoming more challenging to analyse the execution traces generated by formal verification tools. This paper presents a method for unification of execution traces of industrial automation systems, based on IEC 61499 standard. Execution trace of a system is a sequence of events, where each event represents a change in the state of the system. Execution traces allow developers to explore safely behavior of control software. Execution traces can be obtained several ways, including monitoring of a real system (or its simulator), or as a counterexample build by model checker. In the paper we explore unification of execution traces for debug task in FBME - modular IDE for IEC 61499 applications. We present the formal model of the execution trace representation and show the working on a simple example.

In this paper, we discuss how process mining techniques can be applied in industrial control systems for modeling, verification, and enhancement of the cyber-physical system based on recorded data logs. Process mining is used for extracting the process models in different notations from the recorded behavioral traces of the system. The output model of the system’s behavior is mainly derived using an open-source tool called ProM. The model can be used for such applications as anomaly detection, detection of cyber-attacks and alarm analysis in industrial control systems with the help of various control flow discovery algorithms. The extracted process model can be used to verify how the event log deviates from it by replaying the log on Petri net for conformance analysis.

Recent technological advances and manufacturing paradigm evolutions in industrial settings will dramatically increase the complexity of automation control systems. Traditional solutions to the software development of low-level control kernels (e.g., numerical control kernel, motion control kernel, and real-time communication tasks) are unable to cope effectively with such complexity due to an inadequate level of abstraction and challenges for dependability. This article presents a formal semantics integrated model-driven design approach as a holistic solution. A domain-specific modeling language (DSML) is specified based on the adaption of IEC 61 499 architecture, along with the extensions of task model, task-to-resource allocation, and nonfunctional specification. Both formal structural and behavioral semantics of the proposed DSML are then explicitly defined. Design-time formal verification is also achieved by automated model transformations. A metaprogrammable environment is adopted to facilitate flexible modeling, verification, and code generation. A case study is demonstrated on implementing a prototype computer numerical control (CNC) system using the proposed solution.Note to Practitioners—The low-level automation control system in the modern manufacturing scenarios require more agility while respecting strict timing constraints. Handling such complexity with manual coding is getting harder and less efficient. The DSML and the supporting development environment presented in this article aim to enhance the level of automation, flexibility, and dependability of the whole design process. For the proposed DSML, its syntax is formalized and defined as metamodels, while the semantics is integrated through model annotation and transformation. These definitions are implemented as external rules for a metaprogrammable environment to establish our proposed development tool. The finding and insight from this article can enhance efficiency and dependability during the development of common control kernels, such as CNC kernel and motion controller.

Making an updated and as-built model plays an important role in the life-cycle of a process plant. In particular, Digital Twin models must be precise to guarantee the efficiency and reliability of the systems. Data-driven models can simulate the latest behavior of the sub-systems by considering uncertainties and life-cycle related changes. This paper presents a step-by-step concept for hybrid Digital Twin models of process plants using an early implemented prototype as an example. It will detail the steps for updating the first-principles model and Digital Twin of a brownfield process system using data-driven models of the process equipment. The challenges for generation of an as-built hybrid Digital Twin will also be discussed. With the help of process history data to teach Machine Learning models, the implemented Digital Twin can be continually improved over time and this work in progress can be further optimized.

This paper presents the development progress of a methodology to enhance the dynamic visualization of remote Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) using open source frameworks as Gazebo and ROS. The approach is based on a deterministic path pre-calculated by edge computing, accessible for a 3D web visualization cloud platform. The trajectory displayed is verified by a live position streaming from the AGV and a predicted communication delay value. By succeeding on the methodology proposed, it is expected to enhance the fidelity of the 3D live representation for every trajectory executed dynamically and autonomously by AGVs in the shop floor, leaving behind an initial scenario with low visualization fidelity due non-deterministic behavior of long-distance communication channels (including wireless networks essential for AGVs). This work aims to have an impact on improving the user experience of remote web-based interfacing tools to visualize the behavior of cyber-physical systems in agile manufacturing.

Modern data centres require control, which aims to improve their energy efficiency and maintain their high availability. This work considers the implementation of a server fan agent, which is intended to minimise the power consumption of the corresponding server fan or group of fans. In the paper, the reinforcement learning approach to energy-efficient control of server fans is suggested. The reinforcement learning workflow is considered. The Simulink blocks simplifying the building of the environment for the reinforcement learning agent are developed. This work provides the framework for creating and training reinforcement learning agents of different types. As the paper is only a work-in-progress, possible type of agents and their training process is described, but training and deploying the agent is a work for the future.

This article presents an approach for implementing distributed multi-agent control of a multi-axis manipulator using decentralised trajectory interpolation. The approach is prototyped using communication architecture of the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework. Also, using the proposed approach, the simulation was performed in the Copella Simulator. The solution aims at enabling multi-axis machines with intelligent axes having embedded controllers, capable of following trajectories without central control system.

Distributed automation systems design is getting increasingly popular as the systems become more complex and modular. The IEC 61499 automation architecture is seen as the main enabler of component software design for distributed automation systems. It requires novel approaches to integrated development environments (IDE) supporting the engineering of such component software systems. One important part of automation systems engineering is their verification and validation. The efficacy of verification is largely dependent on how seamlessly this process is integrated with the traditional development tools, such as editors, compilers and debuggers. This work presents a start of such a development, that automatizes the model checking process for IEC 61499 systems and provides a visual explanation of its results in the graphical development environment FBME.

This paper reports on a method of automatic generation of a formal model of plant from the behaviour traces recorded from its digital twin. The traces are observed from simulation in the loop of the digital twin in Visual Components connected with distributed automation software, developed in NxtSTUDIO according to IEC 61499. The generated modular formal model of the closed-loop system is transformed to the model of uncontrolled plant behaviour extended with nondeterminism. The model is then combined in closed-loop with the formal model of controller, generated from its source code using the fb2smv tool. The verification and simulation is done by the symbolic model checker NuSMV tool, which verifies various CTL/LTL specifications of the system.

The need of manufacturing industries to adapt to the demand from customers and the volatile market drives the need for digitalization to realize the so-called smart factory. Smart factory, Compared to traditional factories, smart factory needs to possess high flexibility and stability and often has to employ digital twin. Compared to IEC 61131-3 standard used in traditional industrial production, IEC 61499 standard can bring more advantages to meet the realization of Smart Factory, such as flexibility, distribution and event-driven execution. In this paper, we propose a new Virtual Commissioning (VC) architecture for IEC 61499-based control applications. We build an online collaborative VC platform with the help of cloud computing and containerization technologies. Furthermore, we discuss and propose the utilization of soft-PLC containers from different vendors to meet users’ commissioning requirements for different hardware configurations. Compared with the traditional offline single-person debugging method, our proposed architecture can improve the flexibility, collaboration and efficiency of control software debugging in a more interactive and collaborative style via the online platform we implemented.

Formal verification by means of model checking avails in discovering design issues of safety systems at the early stages. However, a significant amount of time and effort is required to decipher its results and localize the failure, especially in complex logic. This work continues our previous study on the visual explanation of failure traces and introduces change-based causes. Additionally, inspired by the types of properties that revealed model failures in projects of VTT in the Finnish nuclear industry, we define a new form of explanation – a hybrid influence graph. The new approach was implemented in a tool called Oeritte and evaluated using two practical examples of failures in nuclear instrumentation and control systems.

The COVID19 pandemic has created tremendous challenges in the learning and education sector. Schools and universities are forced to close and most teaching activities have to be organized with very limited physical and social interaction between the teachers and students, and also among students. This is particularly difficult for certain learning activity, such as laboratory work where it usually involve the student’s direct interaction with equipments in the school and sometimes the need to work together with the their peers in the same space while interacting with the equipments. This paper presents an experience in shifting the delivery method of a process automation laboratory course at Aalto University from face to face teaching into hybrid due to the restrictionc caused by the pandemic. This paper describes the rework process of the course to realize this shift, and after the course, feedbacks are gathered from the student to see if the approach taken is welcomed by the students. The feedback appears promising, indicating 66% of the respondents agree that they like the hybrid method approach considered.

This paper presents a method of formal modelling of IEC 61499 systems of Function Blocks with Promela1. The existing method of formal verification of IEC 61499 using SMV (Symbolic Model Verifier) is compared with a new approach of verification using SPIN2which is an explicit-state model-checker. The performance of both approaches is studied using a set of deterministic systems of multiple computational units as an example and a more complex non-deterministic elevator model.

This paper introduces a problem-oriented notation within the IEC 61499 syntax to be used for creating formal closed-loop models of cyber-physical automation systems. The proposed notation enables creation of a comprehensive tool-chain that can combine design, simulation, formal verification and distributed deployment of automation software. The proposed notation allows for definition of non-deterministic transitions in ECC of basic function blocks of IEC 61499.The tool chain includes an IEC 61499 compliant engineering environment, fb2smv converter of functions blocks to SMV code, the NuSMV model-checker and utilities for interpreting counterexamples.

Quality control of products plays an important role in various stages of the manufacturing process. In particular the final control of the quality of a product before being shipped to a customer is crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction and avoiding costly recalls. Automating quality inspection and integrating it into a seamless Industry 4.0 setting is therefore an important topic in factory automation.We present early work towards an automated product inspection station. Our inspection station features a 3D scanner as well as a Virtual Reality headset for remote human inspection. In addition, our concept provides for automated analysis of scans in the cloud. We present an architectural concept as well as an early prototype.

Remote monitoring and control of factory equipment promises a more streamlined and therefore less expensive system operation and maintenance. The geographical distance between a factory and its control center, however, may influence the Quality of Service parameters of the network connections which might stymie the overall control process. To get a better understanding of these potential issues and their impact, we conducted a series of measurements over varying distances for the remote control, operation and simulation of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) that are often used in modern factory environments. To achieve these tests, we defined three communication patterns reflecting local and remote connections as well as the usage of cloud-based services. Applying these patterns, we connected the Factory of the Future at the Aalto University in Finland with the VxLab at the RMIT University in Australia and the Microsoft Azure cloud in the Netherlands. This allowed us to measure important Quality of Service networking parameters for the communication over short, medium, and very long distances. In this paper, we present first empirical results and discuss their impact on the remote control of AGVs.

This paper presents integration of software services of smart-sensors into distributed process automation systems using the IEC 61499 architecture. This solution enhances interoperability of IIoT devices and reduces system integration effort. Benefits of IEC 61499 for implementing systems with smart sensors mixing both change and time-based signals have been proven. This also promises reduced power requirements of the field devices.

This paper reports on integration of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) service framework Arrowhead with automation systems programmed in the traditional and future automation languages. In particular it focuses on integrating the Arrowhead Datamanager system into the Eclipse 4DIAC IEC 61499 development environment and testing it on a physical system plant.

The automatic generation of digital twins of industrial processes requires the integration of several sources of information. If the twin is expected to accurately capture thermo-hydraulic phenomena, dimensions of tanks and other process components as well as detailed pipe routing information is relevant. Such information is not comprehensively captured in P&IDs (Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams), but it is available from 3D CAD models. However, information about control loops is not available from 3D CAD models, but is available from P&IDs. Previous research has demonstrated the extraction of such information from machine-readable P&IDs and 3D CAD models and converting this information to graphs. Further research is expected on applying graph matching methods for integrating these separate graphs to a common graph-based data structure that captures all of the desired information. This common model could support further work to develop digital twins. A major obstacle to this is that the graphs that have currently been generated from P&IDs and 3D CAD models are at very different abstraction levels, so graph matching methods are not feasible. This article address this obstacle by building on previous work, in which graphs were generated from P&IDs and 3D CAD models. The contribution of this paper is several novel algorithms for preprocessing a 3D CAD generated graph, until it is at the same level of abstraction as a P&ID generated graph of the same industrial process. The algorithms are demonstrated in the context of a laboratory process.

Despite being one of the most reliable approaches for ensuring system correctness, model checking requires auxiliary tools to fully avail. In this work, we tackle the issue of its results being hard to interpret and present OERITTE, a tool for automatic visual counterexample explanation for function block diagrams. To learn what went wrong, the user can inspect a parse tree of the violated LTL formula and a table view of a counterexample, where important variables are highlighted. Then, on the function block diagram of the system under verification, they can receive a visualization of causality relationships between the calculated values of interest and intermediate results or inputs of the function block diagram. Thus, OERITTE serves to decrease formal model and specification debugging efforts along with making model checking more utilizable for complex industrial systems.

Modern data centres consume electricity at the industrial scale; at the same time, most of them demonstrate redundancy in energy consumption. The two most significant energy consumers in a data centre are its computational system and cooling system. This work focuses on techniques, which adapt the system energy use based on resource requirements at run-time. Actually, this work is an inception phase, which determines the main requirements to control the energy-efficient data centre and develops its general project. For that aim, the general design of the multi-agent control is proposed. The different types of agents are identified and their objectives are determined. Based on agent types the architecture of the multi-agent control is developed and agents' interactions are considered. The paper presents an example of an agent controlling a server fan. The agent is examined using closed-loop co-simulation with a server model.

Water scarcity has been intensified globally due to the rapid growth of economic and population. Wastewater treatment and recycling is one of the most feasible strategies for meeting the ever-increasing water usage. However, conventional centralized wastewater treatment plants are being stretched to their limits with the emerging urban structures. To mitigate this situation, this paper proposes a decentralized treatment solution for domestic wastewater leveraging the recent advancements in instrumentation, automation, and information technologies. In particular, a 60-ton adjustable secondary wastewater treatment facility has been designed as a foundation, upon which in-situ monitoring, software-centric automation system, and industrial edge-cloud computing platform have been deployed to form a holistic solution. The resultant facility has been consecutively and successfully operating onsite to date.

Dynamic reconfigurability and adaptability are crucial features of the future manufacturing systems that must be supported by adequate software technologies. Currently, they are typically achieved as add-ons to existing software tools and run-time systems, which are not based on any formal foundation such as formal model of computation (MoC). This paper presents the new programming paradigm of service oriented SystemJ (SOSJ), which targets dynamic distributed software systems suited for future manufacturing applications. SOSJ is built on a merger and the synergies of two programming concepts of service oriented architecture, to support dynamic software system composition, and SystemJ programming language based on a formal MoC, which targets correct by construction design of static distributed software systems. The resulting programming paradigm allows the design and implementation of dynamic distributed software systems.

Nowadays an increasing number of industries are considering moving toward being Industry 4.0 compliant. But this transition is not straightforward: transfer to new system can lead to significant production downtime, resulting in delays and cost overruns. The best way is systematic seamless transition to newer and advanced technologies that Industry 4.0 offers. This article proposes a framework based on automatic synthesis methods that learns the behavior of an existing legacy programmable logic controller (PLC) and generates state machines that can be incorporated into IEC 61499 function blocks. Proposed algorithms are based on Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solvers. The first algorithm accepts a set of noisy PLC traces and produces a set of candidate state machines that satisfy the traces. The second algorithm accepts error-free traces and synthesizes a modular controller that may be distributed across several physical devices. The toolchain architecture is exemplified on a laboratory scale Festo mechatronic system.

The papers in this special section focus on emerging technologies and new trends in industrial informatics. Industrial informatics is a very dynamic and open-ended research area investigating the application of computing in different industrial domains. The international conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN) was established by the IEEE Industrial Electronic Society in 2003 in order to bridge the significant gap between the high expectations of practice and the state-of-the-art in industry and academic research [item 1) in the Appendix]. Its intention is to provide a dynamic platform for researchers in industry and academy to present their cutting-edge results, and by doing that, form the global industrial informatics agenda.

Smart grid is a cyber-physical system with a high level of complexity due to its decentralized infrastructure. IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 are two industrial standards that can address the challenges introduced by the smart grid on the substation automation level. Development of smart grid automation software is a very time-consuming process due to the need to address many requirements and a high degree of customization in every new substation, which limits the adoption of such smart grid technologies in digital substations. This article aims at addressing this limitation by applying a semiformal boilerplates (BPs) model of functional requirements originally presented in informal natural language. The BPs are then modeled formally in an ontology for model-driven engineering (MDE) model transformation. The contribution of this article is the development of the semiformal and formal BP representation in the form of ontology to formulate smart grid requirements and demonstrating how functional requirements can be translated to IEC 61499 control codes using MDE to autogenerate an IEC 61499 protection and control system with structure and control flow. The MDE framework augmented with the requirement models is illustrated in a case study from the International Council on Large Electric Systems representing different stages of modeling in the proposed framework.

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are becoming common in the industrial automation domain. In industrial CPS, distributed programmable logic controllers collaborate to control manufacturing plants. Design and analysis of such systems require a system model that covers control, computation, and communication with physical plant dynamics. This paper focuses on execution semantics for industrial CPS with the aim of providing a deterministic and platform-independent execution environment. A discrete-event-based execution semantics augmented with timestamp mechanism is proposed for IEC 61499 to provide deterministic behavior and guarantee compliance with real-time constraints for industrial CPS. The timestamped discrete-event-based execution semantics is implemented in an IEC 61499 runtime with service-enabled features. A case study of building automation system is used to prove the proposed semantics.

This paper presents a software design pattern for systems composed from distributed intelligent mechatronic modules which communicate with each other via wireless interface. The design pattern is formed by integrating the reliable communication mechanism called channel, which comes from a system-level programming language SystemJ. The paper demonstrates how the design pattern can be applied in an industrial automation example.

The growing need for smart and flexible systems in many areas of industry, such as manufacturing, smart grids, building automation systems and others, has resulted in new design approaches such as Cyber-physical systems (CPS). This raised the need for formal modelling of these systems to address reliability and robustness requirements. This paper addresses the problem of developing a formal semantics, based on abstract state machines (ASM), for modelling of distributed control systems for industrial CPS based on the IEC 61499 standard. The developed approach allows to build formal models of flexible distributed control systems for analysis and verification of various properties.

Search-based software engineering aims to apply different search-based techniques to software engineering problems. Automation of software development is one such problem. In this paper we evaluate the permutation-based individual encoding for automatic reconstruction of measurement connections in a closed-loop control system using evolutionary algorithm and model checking. Using the permutation-based encoding greatly increases the difficulty of the considered problem, but makes it much closer to the real world scenarios. The results show that even the simple (1+1) evolutionary algorithm can successfully solve the realistic optimization problem with large search space size, although it struggles to find the optimal solution within reasonable time on the hardest problem instance.

Modern industrial processes have grown to be increasingly complex and their development is under tighter time and resource constraints. During the design lifecycle, the handover between process design and automation engineering is a critical step. This paper presents a standards-driven method for supporting the design to automation continuum. The source data format is ISO 15926 Proteus XML. Automation software describing control loops, alarms and interlocks are added as generic attributes in the Instrumentation Loop Function of the Proteus file. The target format is PLCopen XML for IEC 61131-3 based automation software. Control software code, global variables and the main program declarations and body, is auto-generated and defines the basic structure of the automation application. The standards-based method is compared with an applied approach based on state-of-the-art tools used by the industry.

This paper proposes Service Oriented SystemJ - OPC UA (SOSJ - OPC UA), a service-oriented programming approach which targets dynamic industrial manufacturing systems. An extension of SOSJ, SOSJ - OPC UA utilizes OPC UA standard to introduce service orientation, enable interoperability with different actors in the systems, and compliance with Reference Architecture Model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) which defines OPC UA as the communication standard. The paper begins by describing new concept on the synergy of SOSJ and OPC UA. Then, SOA information exchange mechanisms which utilize OPC UA are defined that enable parties to find each other. SOSJ - OPC UA is then demonstrated in a simple manufacturing example to demonstrate its capability.

Daedalus is conceived to enable the full exploitation of the CPS' virtualized intelligence concept, through the adoption of a completely distributed automation platform based on IEC-61499 standard, fostering the creation of a Digital Ecosystem that could go beyond the current limits of manufacturing control systems and propose an ever-growing market of innovative solutions for the design, engineering, production and maintenance of plants' automation.

Data centers as all complex systems are prone to faults, and cost of them can be very high. This paper is focused on detecting the faults in the cooling systems, in particular on local fans level. In the paper, a hybrid approach is proposed. In the approach a model is used as substitute of the real system to generate dataset containing records of both normal and fault cases. On the generated data, machine learning algorithm or ensemble of algorithms are selected and trained to detect the faults. To demonstrate the approach, the rack model of real data center is created, and reliability of the model is shown. Using the model, the dataset with normal as well as abnormal records of data is generated. To detect faults of local fans, simple classifiers are built for all pairs: a local fan - a processor unit. Classifiers are trained on one part of generated data (training data), and then their accuracy is estimated on another part of generated data (test data). A real-time fault detection system is built based on the classifiers. The rack model is used as the substitute of the real plant to check operability of the system.

In cyber-physical petroleum systems (CPPS), accurate estimation of interwell connectivity is an important process to know reservoir properties comprehensively, determine water injection rate scientifically, and enhance oil recovery effectively for oil and gas (O&G) field. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) based analysis method is proposed to estimate interwell connectivity. The generated neural network is used to define the mapping function between production wells and surrounding injection wells based on the historical water injection and liquid production data. Finally, the proposed method is applied to a synthetic reservoir model. Experimental results show that ANN based approach is an efficient method for analyzing interwell connectivity.

Today, more and more industries are considering moving towards being Industry 4.0 compliant. But this transition is not straightforward due to many reasons: in particular, transfer to new system can lead to significant production downtime and could result in delays and cost overruns. The best way is systematic seamless transition to newer and advanced technologies that Industry 4.0 offers. This paper proposes an automated synthesis framework that learns the behavior of existing legacy and often black-box programmable logic controllers and generates state machines that can be incorporated into IEC 61499 function blocks. The paper presents the toolchain architecture and exemplifies it on a laboratory scale Festo didactic mechatronic system.

Efficient application of model-based software design methodologies in industrial automation requires methods and tools for automatic code generation. Formal models can be especially useful to avoid ambiguity, to verify and evaluate performance, which ultimately will improve the quality and reliability of the project and lead to lower design costs. This paper proposes methods for implementing state-transition formal models, such as finite state and pushdown automata, as well as extended Petri nets (A-nets) by means of IEC 61499 function blocks. These implementation approaches can be used in the design of industrial cyber-physical systems for monitoring, diagnostics, conformance checking, detection and selection of specified sequences of events and parameterized objects from an input stream. One of the proposed applications is illustrated using an example of an assembly process with LEGO blocks.

The benefits that arise from the adoption of a systems engineering approach to the design of engineered systems are well understood and documented. However, with software systems, different approaches are required given the changeability of requirements and the malleability of software. With the design of industrial cyber-physical systems, one is confronted with the challenge of designing engineered systems that have a significant software component. Furthermore, that software component must be able to seamlessly interact with both the enterprise's business systems and industrial systems. In this paper, we present Janus, which together with the GORITE BDI agent framework, provides a methodology for the design of agent-based industrial cyber-physical systems. Central to the Janus approach is the development of a logical architecture as in traditional systems engineering and then the allocation of the logical requirements to a BDI (Belief Desire Intention) agent architecture which is derived from the physical architecture for the system. Janus has its origins in product manufacturing; in this paper, we apply it to the problem of Fault Location, Isolation and Service Restoration (FLISR) for power substations.

In product-centric manufacturing paradigm, a digital counterpart of a product will request manufacturing services to assemble itself. A modelling & assembly planning framework for product-centric design is considered and extended in this paper. Furthermore, we present a case-study on a product-centric digital twin controlling the assembly of its physical counterpart using a collaborative robot.

OPC UA is considered as an important communication technology for Industry 4.0 components. On the other hand, IEC 61499 is one of the technologies available for developing applications to the same components. In this paper, a proposal for an OPC UA information model for IEC 61499 systems is developed in order to enhance communication with IEC 61499 applications through OPC UA. Already existing related information models, particularly OPC UA for Devices and IEC 61131-3, are utilized as models and parts of the design. An OPC UA wrapper for IEC 61499 runtimes is presented as one possible way to implement the information model. Both the information model and the wrapper are then tested through a case study.

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) execute critical control software that drives Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS). PLCs can become easy targets for cyber-adversaries as they are resource-constrained and are usually built using legacy, less-capable security measures. Security attacks can significantly affect system availability, which is an essential requirement for IACS. We propose a method to make PLC applications more security-aware. Based on the well-known IEC 61499 function blocks standard for developing IACS software, our method allows designers to annotate critical parts of an application during design time. On deployment, these parts of the application are automatically secured using appropriate security mechanisms to detect and prevent attacks. We present a summary of availability attacks on distributed IACS applications that can be mitigated by our proposed method. Security mechanisms are achieved using IEC 61499 Service-Interface Function Blocks (SIFBs) embedding Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS), added to the application at compile time. This method is more amenable to providing active security protection from attacks on previously unknown (zero-day) vulnerabilities. We test our solution on an IEC 61499 application executing on Wago PFC200 PLCs. Experiments show that we can successfully log and prevent attacks at the application level as well as help the application to gracefully degrade into safe mode, subsequently improving availability.

The paper presents a solution of the problem of non-linear control law design for a group of mobile robots. The paper also provides a survey of modern methods and approaches to group control, discusses the use of methods for optimizing collective behavior, artificial potential fields, heuristic methods based on the recognition of the situation and the development of appropriate actions and methods based on the use of fuzzy logic. It is shown that when applying these methods, the problem of analyzing the stability of the obtained closed-loop control system is complex. From the survey of modern methods, the basic conditions imposed on the synthesized law of group control of robots are highlighted. These conditions are adaptability to the external environment and asymptotically stable movement of mobile robots to a given point in space with a given type of order. Therefore, the paper presents a method which is based on new non-linear approaches to the control of mobile robots' group, in particular, synergetic control theory. The main aspects of the proposed method are providing a stable moving of a group of tracked robots to the desire position, therefor in the result it makes a specified formation.

IEC 61499 provides a standardized approach for the development of distributed control systems. The standard introduces a component architecture, based on function blocks that are event-triggered components processing data and signals. However, it gives only limited support for the design of reconfigurable architectures. In particular, handling of several reconfiguration scenarios is quite heavy on this level since a scenario changes the execution model of the system due to requirements. To this end, a new IEC 61499-based model named reconfigurable function blocks (RFBs) is proposed. An RFB processes the reconfiguration events and switches directly to the suitable configuration using a hierarchical state machine model. The latter represents the reconfiguration model which reacts on changes in the environment in order to find an adequate reconfiguration scenario to be executed. Each scenario presents a particular sequence of algorithms, encapsulated in another execution control chart slave which represents the control model of an RFB. This hierarchy simplifies the design and separates the reconfiguration logic from control models. To verify its correctness and alleviate its state space explosion problem in model checking, this paper translates an RFB system automatically into a generalized model of reconfigurable timed net condition/event systems (GR-TNCES), a Petri net class that preserves the semantics of an RFB system. In this paper, along with verification of deterministic properties, we also propose to quantify and analyze some probabilistic properties. As a case study, we consider a smart-grid system, interpreting permanent faults in it as reconfiguration events, and we characterize them with the expected occurrence probability and the corresponding repair time. A tool chain ZiZo is developed to support the proposed approach.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) contain intertwined and distributed software, hardware, and physical components to control complex physical processes. They find wide application in industrial systems, such as smart grid protection systems, which face increasingly complex communication and computation needs. Due to the scale and complexity of the interactions that occur within CPS, tracing requirements through to the system components and software code that implement them is often hard. Existing requirements management systems do not scale well, and traceability is difficult to implement and maintain in highly heterogeneous systems. However, the information trace that links provide is crucial for supporting testing and certification activities in safety-critical environments such as smart grids. The well-formed models of power systems provided by the IEC 61850 standard and the software design structure provided by the IEC 61499 Function Blocks standard can be leveraged to automate many traceability operations. We present Traceability of Requirements Using Splices (TORUS), a novel traceability framework for the development of large-scale safety-critical CPS. TORUS introduces splices , autonomous graph-based data structures that automatically create and manage trace links between requirements and components through the inevitable changes that occur during system development. The formal, graph-based structure of TORUS lends itself well to the development of sophisticated algorithms to automate the extraction of useful traceability information such as historical records and metrics for requirements coverage and component coupling. By capturing not only the current state of the system but also historical information, TORUS allows project teams to see a much richer view of the system and its artifacts. We apply TORUS to the development of a protection system for smart grid substations. In addition, through a number of experiments in splice creation, modification, and application of automated algorithms, we show that TORUS scales easily to large systems containing hundreds of thousands of requirements and system components and millions of possible trace links.

We propose a two-stage exact approach for identifying finite-state models of function blocks based on given execution traces. First, a base finite-state model is inferred with a method based on translation to the Boolean satisfiability problem, and then, the base model is generalized by inferring minimal guard conditions of the state machine with a method based on translation to the constraint satisfaction problem.

The papers in this special section explore the resilience in the energy markets. The transformation of energy infrastructure is making the resilience a fundamental topic for the definition of future configuration of the energy systems. This is due to the increased penetration of renewable energy sources (RES), the distributed energy management, the change in the power demand, the integration between energy and mobility sectors, the progressive liberalization of energy markets, the increased probability of extreme weather events, and the occurrence of errors in the interaction between humans and machines.

The uncertainty caused by the variability in renewable energy production requires the engagement of consumer-side energy production and consumption to provide sufficient flexibility and reliability for the power grid. This study presents an algorithm for allocating tasks to distributed energy resources allowing consumers to provide flexibility for frequency containment reserves. The task allocation algorithm aims at supporting the plug and play of energy resources, and it avoids the need for hard real-time messages during the coordination of the resources. The algorithm combines a novel control strategy with an information and communication technology architecture. The main decision logic of the algorithm is defined together with the distributed control logic. A prototype implementation of the overall system for frequency control is used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. The simulation results show that the algorithm achieves the specified objectives, and has advantages compared to the state-of-the-art solution.

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), empowered by robust computing infrastructure and abundance of data, maintains potential for radical transformation of human society, essentially a third phase in evolution. Numerous research endeavor, policy development, and thought-leadership are presently in progress aimed at discovering data-driven intelligent decision-making solutions for smart cities, smart grids, smart homes, and informed citizens as well as addressing potential risks posed by AI workplace automation. Joining this broad effort, this Special Section contributes six research articles that consolidate recent developments in AI for industrial informatics.

Industrial automation systems (IAS) need to be highly dependable; they should not merely function as expected but also do so in a reliable, safe, and secure manner. Formal methods are mathematical techniques that can greatly aid in developing dependable systems and can be used across all phases of the system development life cycle (SDLC), including requirements engineering, system design and implementation, verification and validation (testing), maintenance, and even documentation. This state-of-the-art survey reports existing formal approaches for creating more dependable IAS, focusing on static formal methods that are used before a system is completely implemented. We categorize surveyed works based on the phases of the SDLC, allowing us to identify research gaps and promising future directions for each phase.

This paper proposes a novel extension for communication in the lEC 61499 standard. Inspired by the features found in the formal programming language SystemJ, the extension supports reliable and guaranteed communication in distributed execution of function block application(s)/program(s). The extension utilizes mechanisms agnostic on underlying network protocols and are based on formal semantics that guarantee data delivery. The use of proposed extension, called channel, is demonstrated in an industrial automation-type example.

We developed an algorithm for inferring controller logic for cyber-physical systems (CPS) in the form of a state machine from given execution traces and linear temporal logic formulas. The algorithm implements an iterative counterexample-guided strategy: constraint programming is employed for constructing a minimal state machine from positive and negative traces (counterexamples) while formal verification is used for discovering new counterexamples. The proposed approach extends previous work by (1) considering a more intrinsic model of a state machine making the algorithm applicable to synthesizing CPS controller logic, and (2) using closed-loop verification which allows considering more expressive temporal properties.

It had always been the intention of the agent-based manufacturing community that software agents would provide a vertical integration capability for manufacturing enterprises by linking the control world with the business world. In this paper, we introduce the PROSA/G conceptual model, which extends the widely used PROSA reference architecture with a goal-based execution model that employs both BDI semantics and a business process modelling metaphor. PROSA/G is is grounded in the GORITE software framework and its efficacy is demonstrated through the implementation of an agent-based execution system for a simple manufacturing system controlled by IEC 61499 function blocks.

Automation of software development is an actively researched problem. Search-based software engineering aims to apply various search-based techniques to software engineering problems. Recently we proposed the method for automatic generation of function block application using evolutionary algorithms and model checking and applied it to the problem of automatic generation of data connections in distributed control system. The aim of this paper is to further study this method on the problem of matching of input and output connections in a closed-loop plant-controller system. The computed fitness function distribution shows that the evaluated method successfully determines the correct input and output connections between the controller and the plant. Additionally, we evaluate how the composition of specification requirements in the fitness function affects the performance of the (1+1) evolutionary algorithm. We show that additional liveness formulas can improve the performance of the algorithm, while the introduction of safety formulas significantly decreases it.

Cooling system is the second most energy-consuming part of a modern data center; herewith it often consumes energy inefficiently. Therefore, any possibility allowing to reduce energy consumption of cooling systems should be studied and put into practice if successful. In this paper, the idea about impact of IT load distribution between servers on energy consumption of data center cooling system is proposed. The idea is in distribution of total IT load between servers according to the location of the servers inside racks. To test idea, the model simulating the thermal behaviour and energy consumption of a real data center located in Northern Sweden is developed. Comparing the data obtained from the real plant and the data generated at the simulation shows the reliability of the model. Two strategies of IT load distribution between servers are considered, and their impact on energy consumption of cooling system is demonstrated.

Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (iCPS) enables coordination between various subsystems and devices based on real-time feedback data from sensors. iCPS must react rapidly to new requirements and adjust itself to fulfill new functionalities in no time. On the software side, control programs of iCPS need to be reconfigured dynamically. An efficient way for massive reconfiguration is automatic code generation. In this paper, a knowledge-driven code generation method is experimented for software-defined iCPS. Based on sensor values, actuators are controlled by the reasoning process with support of ontological knowledge base. The results demonstrate that iCPS could be driven by rules completely without programming control software.

The smart grid is envisioned as a reconfigurable energy exchange network that is resilient to failures. An expected feature of the future smart grid is optimal power distribution from energy producers to consumers, also referred to as network operation planning. This entails allocating finite energy resources to customers in order to optimally satisfy all customer demands, subject to constraints on the topology of the graph. We model this problem as the Capacitated Spanning Forest Problem (CSF), namely the optimization problem of creating a spanning forest with a capacity constraint on each tree limiting its total weight. We present a new heuristic algorithm for solving CSF based on computing the minimum-cost maximum flow on the graph. Our algorithm outperforms state of the art approaches with respect to solution quality and running time.

This paper presents initial results on formal verification of protection functions in a smart power distribution grid. Informal properties of the smart grid were formalized in the language of LTL and formal verification is performed using NuSMV model checker on the closed-loop plant-control model which consists of IEC 61499-based control logic and an abstract plant model of distribution grid with fault scenario. The paper presents the results of verification of dependability, liveliness, safety and security properties. The results show the effectiveness of the closed-loop formal verification methodology.

Flexibility and reconfigurability of production systems requires intelligent devices and products that enables easy integration and reconfiguration eliminating the need of explicit programing the functionality of resulting system. This lead to the development of such concept as Intelligent Mechatronic Component. However, coordinating such distributed self-contained components into the desired logic of operation is a challenging task. Multi-agent systems (MAS) architecture provides necessary features for seamless integration of individual functionalities of agents into system's behaviour by self-configuration. The presented study explores an approach where MAS realizes high level coordination tasks while IMCs provides embedded services. MAS is realized in GORITE goal-oriented team programming framework deployed as web service in the Cloud. Low-level control of IMCs is developed in IEC 61499. The paper presents a case study of a Pick and Place manipulator composed of intelligent cylinders.

A Digital Twin (DT) of a production plant is a digital replica of the plant's physical assets which contains the structure and the dynamics of how the devices and process operate. Simulation-based DTs (SBDTs) are those based on online first-principles simulation models. In these systems, model parameter estimation techniques keep an online plant simulator in the same state as the targeted device or process. As a result, non-measured information of the current state of the plant can be obtained from the model. SBDTs can be used for a number of important applications and they have various advantages compared to DTs based on data-driven models. However, wider industrial adoption of SBDTs is hindered by laborious development of their underlying first-principles simulation model as well as by a lack of integrated lifecycle-wide implementation methods and simulation architectures. This paper focuses on applying previously presented methods for reducing implementation effort of SBDTs. Firstly, laborious simulation model development is tackled by applying an automatic model generation method. Secondly, an integrated implementation methodology of a lifecycle-wide online simulation architecture is followed for developing the SBDT. A SBDT of a laboratory-scale process is implemented to demonstrate the proposed method. The results show a higher level of fidelity compared to previous publications.

The smart grid is positioned as the next generation energy distribution system which incorporates distributed renewable energy and digital communication infrastructure. The Smart Grid is considered by many as a complex Cyber-Physical System, a system with tight integration between its modular cyber and physical processes interacting in a networked environment. Traditionally, the method of testing Smart Grid automation systems is based on device-based testing and this is largely influenced by the bottom-up design methods that are used widely in the engineering of the substation automation system. However, with the advent of the Smart Grid and the introduction of distributed based automation systems, requirement-driven testing of the whole automation system may be more beneficial than device based testing. In this paper, a scripted co-simulation platform is introduced with the purpose of automating the testing of functional requirements in distributed substation automation systems. The scripted co-simulation testing framework is illustrated on a CIGRE case study where the distributed automation system is validated against the functional requirements.

Data centers are important players in the energy infrastructure. Aiming at addressing environmental challenges, large data centers such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc., are increasing share of green power in their daily energy consumption. Such trends drive research into new directions, e.g. sustainable data centers. The research often relies on expressive models that provides sufficient details however practical to re-use and expand. There is a lack of available data center models that capture dynamics of the facility from the CPU to the cooling tower. It is a challenge to develop a model that allows to describe complete data center of any scale including its connection to the grid. This paper proposes such a model building on existing work. The challenge was to put the pieces of data center together and describe dynamics of each element so that interdependencies between components and parameters are captured correctly and in sufficient details. The proposed model was used in the project “Data center microgrid integration” and proven to be adequate and important to support such study.

Industrial automation and control systems are going through a big change, adopting the modern computing and Internet technologies to give completely new agility and adaptability properties to production plants, transport and energy systems and infrastructures, often referred to as Industrial Cyber Physical Systems (ICPS). In manufacturing, they are expected to cope with product customizations, changes in the market or supply chain, or failures. However, the wide adoption of ICPS requires rethinking approaches to their design and programming. This article reviews the state of the art of programming approaches for ICPS and analyses their capabilities, in the hope that it will help researchers to identify potential opportunities of future development of software solutions for ICPS.

Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (iCPS) are considered as the enabling technology for achieve Industry 4.0. One main characteristic of the iCPS is the information transparency to allow interoperability among various devices and systems. The OPC UA provides a common information model for connecting Industry 4.0 components. On the other hand, the IEC 61499 is commonly used as an executable modeling language for iCPS. The IEC 61499 function block network provides an abstract view of the system configuration. By combining IEC 61499 and OPC UA, a visual executable model for iCPS is completed. In this paper, the mapping between two standards are provided and a case study of the proposed mapping is given.

An approach is proposed for the implementation of distributed semaphores in the IEC 61499 architecture on the basis of protocols for solving consensus in a network of unreliable processes that allows developing function blockbased control applications with complex types of interactions using the resources sharing. The models of distributed semaphores (in the form of coloured Petri nets) based on Paxos and Raft protocols for solving consensus are developed, simulation experiments are performed in the CPN Tools, comparative analysis and recommendations are given.

Model driven development of industrial process control systems has received extensive interest from the industrial informatics community. Another area of active interest has been the use of simulation of industrial processes in conjunction with control system design. However, the importance of sustainable development and environmental footprints are becoming increasingly important for the process industry, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the established technique for this purpose. LCA is currently being performed manually by a corps of engineers unaware of recent developments in industrial informatics. Thus LCA is a cumbersome process that cannot be integrated into a model driven development philosophy. This can significantly undermine the benefits from model driven development, since the outcome of LCA may result in significant change requests to the process design and consequently to the control system design. These problems could be overcome, if LCA could be brought under the scope of model driven development. This requires that the LCA model could be generated automatically into the LCA tool. This is feasible, since process designers ofter develop a first principles process simulation model that has the required information. This paper presents a methodology for automatic LCA model generation from a first-principles simulation model.

As the world becomes more and more automated, the degree of cyber-physical systems involvement cannot be overestimated. A large part of them are safety-critical, thus, it is especially important to ensure their correctness before start of operation or reconfiguration. For this purpose the model checking approach should be used since it allows rigorously proving system correctness by checking all possible states. To ensure the compliance of controller-plant properties with system requirements, the closed-loop verification approach should be chosen, which requires not only a formal model of the controller, but also a formal model of the plant. In this paper we propose an approach for constructing formal models of context-free deterministic plants automatically using active learning algorithms. The case study shows its successful application to plant model generation for the elevator cyber-physical system.

Model checking is a proven, effective method for verifying instrumentation and control system application logics. If a model of the system being verified does not satisfy a specification, the failure scenario is presented to the user as a counterexample trace. Analysis of the counterexample can be time-consuming if the trace is long, the model is large, or the specification is complex. Spurious counterexamples (“false negatives”) often exacerbate the problem. In this paper, we present a method that assists in identifying the root of the failure in both the model and the specification, by animating the model of the function block diagram as well as the LTL property. We also introduce a practical tool for visualizing LTL properties by animation and highlighting of important values based on causality. Using 43 actual design issues identified in practical nuclear industry projects, we then evaluate usefulness of the property visualization and explanation features.

Design patterns in software engineering is a generic solution provided for repeatable problems occurring frequently in a software design. They are used a lot in the field of software engineering, especially for object-oriented software development. Different standards exist for design and development of industrial cyber-physical systems and the IEC 61499 standard is one of them. The standard presents a reference component architecture for design and development of distributed industrial cyberphysical systems. There is a lack of design patterns for application development with IEC 61499 standard and this paper address this by proposing some patterns. The design patterns presented are inspired by popular design patterns used in software engineering.

Downtime is a key performance index for industrial automation systems. An industrial automation system achieves maximum productivity when its downtime is reduced to the minimum. One approach to minimize downtime is to predict system faults and recover from them automatically. A cloud-based decision support system is proposed for rapid problem identifications and to assist the self-management processes. By running multiple parallel simulations of control software with real-time inputs ahead of system time, faults could be detected and corrected automatically using autonomous industrial software agents. Fault trees, as well as control algorithms, are modeled using IEC 61499 function blocks that can be directly executed on both physical controllers and cloud services. A case study of water heating process is used to demonstrate the self-healing process supported by the cloud-based decision support system.

The papers in this special section focus on information technology in industrial automation applications. Information technologies play a crucial role in the current and future developments of industrial automation. There are numerous strategic agendas on future manufacturing that have appeared recently worldwide and all of them emphasize the role of information technologies in automation in shaping up the future of production industries. For example, according to the German development agenda Industrie 4.0, the main driving force of the new industrial revolution is the Internet of things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The IoT concept is becoming a major driver for many industrial applications. In manufacturing, it leads to flattening of the control pyramid, thus, increasing flexibility and enabling unprecedented level of production flexibility and adaptability, making it possible and feasible to produce products in smaller amounts, with shorter time to markets and higher economic efficiency. In the manufacturing environment, CPS comprise smart machines, storage systems, and production facilities capable of autonomously exchanging information, triggering actions, and controlling each other independently. The research community effort has been focusing on systems interoperability, performance, and efficiency of the design process, as well as assurance in the correctness of systems behavior.

Reliability of industrial automation software, which is usually ensured with testing and simulation, can be improved using formal analysis and, in particular, the technique of model checking. In model checking, considering the closed-loop composition of the plant model and the controller model allows checking a larger class of properties than in the more traditional open-loop case, where the model of the controller is verified alone. Constructing the formal model of the plant automatically may significantly reduce human workload and mitigate the human factor issue. Commonly, complex industrial plants and controllers have modular structure, and thus the problem of automatic construction of a modular plant model is important. This paper proposes two techniques which extend an earlier proposed method of monolithic plant model construction to the modular case.

Industrial automation systems are commonly obliged to comply with correctness requirements and safety standards. Testing and simulation are traditionally used to ensure this compliance. For mission-critical applications, formal verification and model checking in particular are also used, but such techniques are computationally intensive and difficult to apply in practice. This paper searches for synergies between testing and model checking by generalizing an earlier proposed formal test modeling framework. It presents a technique of testing automation systems with the use of model checking, which now supports multiple model checking environments and a more generic test case representation. The proposed technique is applied on a case study involving a simple safety-critical system with timing requirements. Experiments show that the technique is fast despite the use of formal methods and at the same time has several benefits compared to usual testing.

In some fields of industrial automation, such as nuclear power plant (NPP) industry in Finland, thorough verification of systems and demonstration of their safety are mandatory. Model checking is one of the techniques to achieve a high level of reliability. The goal of this paper is practical: we explore which type of model checking - either explicit-state or symbolic - is more suitable to verify instrumentation and control (I&C) applications, represented as function block networks. Unlike previous studies, in addition to the common open-loop approach, which views the controller model alone, we consider closed-loop verification, where the plant is also modeled. In addition, we present a procedure to translate block networks to the language of the SPIN explicit-state model checker.

To facilitate correctness and safety of mission-critical automation systems, formal methods should be applied in addition to simulation and testing. One of such formal methods is model checking, which is capable of verifying complex requirements for the system's model. If both the controller and the controlled plant are formally modeled, then the variant of this technique called closed-loop model checking can be applied. Recently, a technique of automatic plant model generation has been proposed which is applicable in this scenario. This paper continues the work in this direction by presenting two plant model construction approaches which are much more scalable with respect to the previous one, and puts this work into a more practical context. The approaches are evaluated on a case study from the nuclear automation domain.

Network Planning and Fault Location, Isolation and Supply Restoration (FLISR) are important functions of power distribution automation systems. We model these functions as a combinatorial optimization graph problem called the Capacitated Spanning Forest Problem (CSF), defined as the problem of creating a spanning forest with a capacity constraint on each tree bounding its total weight. We present an algorithm based on a Hill Climbing heuristic for the solution of CSF that can be used to solve network planning and supply restoration scenarios on large graphs representing smart grids.

Cyber-physical agnosticism (CPA) is a property of software in cyber-physical systems (CPS) to withstand various disturbances and keep maintaining the required behaviour of the physical process. With the increased research on the use of internet of things (IoT) in industrial automation (IoT-A), there is a need for robust distributed automation control systems that can take into account some overheads of using wireless devices in such an IoT setup. For example, data transfer delays between wireless sensors and the controller might result in the controller acting on a stale sensor value. In this paper, we present an approach of using time-aware computations to let the controller to assess quality of the input data and formal verification as a method to check the CPA property of the IoT-A applications. The paper specifically considers IEC 61499 standard for implementation of distributed IoT-A application. Ptolemy II PTIDES inspired time stamped event semantics is used in the application to keep track of the origin of different events. Timed automata are used to model the plant. The IEC 61499 application together with abstract plant model is then converted to SMV language and NuSMV model checker is used for formal verification. The paper presents a case study of an elevator example to demonstrate the proposed approach. A random delay is used to model the communication delay in the wireless network. It is shown that if the communication delay was not accounted for, then the elevator would stop in-between the floors and open the doors that is considered unsafe. The paper then shows how time-aware computation is used to make sure that the elevator always follows safe behaviour.

The increased penetration of distributed and volatile renewable generation requires the demand-side to be actively involved in energy balancing operations. This paper proposes a solution in which big data and machine learning methods are employed to enhance the capabilities of a Virtual Power Plant to participate and intelligently bid into a demand response energy market. The energy market being investigated consists of the frequency containment reserve market. First, we define the core decision-making required to overcome the uncertainties in the frequency containment reserve market participation for a Virtual Power Plant. Then, we focus on forecasting the frequency containment reserve prices for the day-ahead. We analyze the price data, and identify and collect the relevant features for the prediction of the prices. In addition, we select several regression analysis methods to be utilized for the prediction. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the implemented methods by executing several experiments, and compare the the performance with the performance of a state of the art autoregression method.

Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems enhance physical devices with control, computing and communication abilities to provide smart solutions for industrial applications. In industrial applications, data acquisition is an important topic. Based on feedback data from sensors and equipment, industrial processes could be optimized either by experienced engineers manually or smart agents automatically. The IEC 61499 standard is designed for modeling distributed automation systems that perfectly fits the scope of industrial CPS. However, real-time data acquisition is not supported by the IEC 61499 standard currently. In this paper, an extension to IEC 61499 compliance profile is proposed to support real-time data acquisition. Both client/server and peer-to-peer model are supported. The proposed extension is demonstrated using a demo car manufacturing line.

A tracking simulator is an online simulation system that utilizes dynamic parameter estimation for calibrating model parameters to achieve state synchronization with the process. It can be utilized as a plant-wide virtual sensors or as a predictive tool to provide production forecasts based on the current state of the plant. The appearance of industrial applications based on tracking simulators has been hindered by high development cost and time-consuming sustainability of simulation models. In order to overcome this, dynamic simulation models developed during the process design and engineering stages could be used for implementing industrial tracking simulators. However, before these models can be utilized online, they require going through a model adaptation procedure where their structure and parameters are updated. This paper presents a model adaptation method for the implementation of tracking simulators which utilizes OPC Unified Architecture to adapt simulation models developed during the engineering phases of the process plant and apply them at the operation and maintenance stages. In this work, the method is described, implemented and tested using a representative process.

Cooling systems consume around 40% of modern data centres' total energy consumption, thus reducing the energy waste in this sector will have positive environmental impact. There exist several cooling methods appropriate for particular conditions. Since environmental conditions, such as air temperature, change on seasonal bases, no single cooling method can be claimed to be the best. In contrast, data centres with multiple cooling methods can perform more efficiently. However, the decision-making process of which cooling system is the most appropriate one should be an automated process. In this paper, a decision-making process based on simulation is proposed. The simulation tool comprises of a mathematical model and a multi-agent control. The mathematical model simulates the thermal behaviour of SICS ICE data centre, which is a real facility located in Northern Sweden. The main aim of the simulation is to calculate thermal conditions and energy consumption of different cooling methods in cold and hot seasons. The result then will be used by multi-agent control to choose the most appropriate cooling method.

Power quality is an important aspect in data centers and power system operators prefer data centers with high standard power quality. Modern data centers consume large amount of electrical power. As the cooling systems are accounted for 40% of the total power consumption in data centers, energy efficiency in this sector is of high importance. This research investigates if the existing energy efficient cooling strategies can also meet the power quality level defined by the IEEE 519-2014 standard. In this research three automation strategies based on IEC 61499 standard for cooling system in a typical server room are considered and the effects of each one on power quality parameters are investigated via simulation. The investigation has been performed for both; internal power grid of data center and upstream power network that data center is connected to. Power quality parameters which are considered are Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), voltage and current distortions. Results of simulation prove that the automation strategies with highest energy efficiency, also meet the higher power quality standard.

The pervasiveness and significance of software have upset its subordinate role in the original software-hardware relationship. Software has become a main factor for defining and differentiating various “things”. This has led to a new emerging technology trend called Software-defined Anything (SDx), where a system's functionality and diversity are largely characterized by its software. SDx technologies are now pervading and reshaping many industries. This work initiates the investigation on possible approaches for applying the SDx paradigm in automation and control systems. In particular, a framework consists of commodity control hardware, service-oriented control software, and a cloud computing platform has been proposed. An application in building automation and management system has been developed and deployed to demonstrate the proposed approach's feasibility.

A tracking simulator is an online simulation system that achieves a permanent state synchronization with the targeted process by dynamically calibrating the model state after comparing process measurements with model results. Tracking simulators are a powerful industrial application that can be utilized as a plant-wide virtual sensor for process monitoring and diagnosis as well as a predictive tool to provide production forecasts based on the current state of the plant. In a tracking simulator, the online calibration is performed by a dynamic estimation method. One of the most adopted dynamic estimaton methods is implicit dynamic feedback, which is based on the adjustment of model parameter using feedback controllers to align simulation results and process outputs. Thus far, PI controllers have been the most popular approach for the implementation of implicit dynamic feedback estimators. Other feedback control techniques could be employed to improve the reliability of applications based on this estimation method. This paper presents an implicit dynamic feedback estimation approach based on sliding mode controllers (SMC) for industrial tracking simulation systems. In contrast to PI controllers, SMC controllers can be more easily tuned and they are robust against uncertainties related to the simulation model behavior and measurement noise. In this work, the SMC-based approach for estimation of tracking simulation systems is described, implemented and tested using a representative laboratory-scale process.

This paper addresses the problem of how to estimate performance of distributed IEC 61499 automation systems and optionally, how to improve end-to-end response times in general. In order to make the process of distributed automation system design and deployment more streamlined, a software tool which could reliably estimate end-to-end response times within a system offline would be very beneficial. Focusing on possibilities to develop such a tool, there is a need for researching ways to determine end-to-end response times within distributed IEC 61499 systems. Based on the findings a model is created which can be used in the future software tool. The tool can either be a stand-alone application or as a plugin to some existing automation software development environment. This tool could be used already in the software development phase in order to compensate for the delays occurring in the physical system and thus, the actual work resulting from fine tuning while deploying the system could be minimized.

This paper proposes a design pattern based on the service-oriented architecture for the design of flexible distributed automation control system for substation automation systems. The design pattern is intended to be applied to control systems based on the leading standards for software development of smart grid: IEC 61850 and IEC 61499. The proposed design pattern models system requirements as orchestrators and IEC 61850 logical node specification is used as the basis for the design of smart grid services. The proposed design pattern is illustrated on a case study of a distribution system which consists of one transformer and five feeder sections. The design pattern is used to design the control system for the feeder section of the case study distribution system which includes the development of the orchestrator from the system requirement to the resultant IEC 61499 control system.

A method for inferring finite-state models of function blocks from given execution traces based on translation to the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is proposed. In contrast to the previous method based on a metaheuristic algorithm, the approach suggested in this paper is exact: it allows to find a solution if it exists or to prove the opposite. The proposed method is evaluated on the example of constructing a finite-state model of a controller for a Pick-and-Place manipulator and is shown to be significantly faster then the metaheuristic algorithm.

With rapid improvement in information and communication technologies, industrial automation systems are under the revolution. Legacy industrial automation systems lack flexibility and interoperability due to multi-layered architecture. From industrial cyber-physical system point of view, a new system architecture is needed to allow vertical and horizontal integration between all devices and systems from enterprise level to sensor level. In this paper, a RESTful service-oriented architecture is proposed for industrial controllers. By adopting RESTful services over HTTP methods, better efficiency for data acquisition from sensors, actuators, and controllers is achieved. In addition, service-oriented device management for industrial controllers is also implemented along with data acquisition. The reference architecture experiments on a car manufacturing demonstration line.

The negative effects of variable renewable generation in the power systems requires the engagement of the demand-side. In fact, consumers-owned energy resources can be engaged to provide the flexibility to the power grid, thus increasing its reliability. This study presents an algorithm for allocating tasks to distributed consumer owned energy resources, to enable consumers to participate in the automated demand response for frequency control by providing reserves for the frequency containment reserves market. The task allocation algorithm is specified as a set of procedures enabling the coordination of energy resources. In addition, a prototype implementation of the automated demand response system is utilized to evaluate the performance of the task allocation algorithm through simulations. The simulation results shows that the designed algorithm achieves the specified objectives, and fulfills the requirements specified by the transmission system operator for the participation in the provision of frequency containment reserves.

Automation of software development process has been a concern for a long time. Genetic programming is a well-known technique which uses evolutionary computation to generate or improve a computer program for a specific task without human participation. We consider the method which applies model checking and evolutionary computation towards the automatic generation of function block control applications for industrial automation systems. As a first step, we evaluate the effectiveness of a fitness function based on the number of satisfied computation tree logic formulas in UPPAAL query language for a manually created UPPAAL model. Results show that such fitness function and the (1+1) evolutionary algorithm can be successfully applied to generation of the required data connections in the IEC 61499 function block application.

The electric vehicles can contribute to reducing electricity costs by providing their batteries as temporary energy storages. The paper presents a new mechanism of their implementation in systems with distributed energy resources. The method is based on individual contracts that facility company makes with the drivers of electric vehicles. The company that has own energy generation from photovoltaic panels, stores and uses the electricity in the batteries of vehicles while they are in the parking lot. The contracts specify the required level of charge at the end of agreement and the financial compensation. The paper analysed proposed cooperation between facility owner and multiple electric vehicles in simulation, using real energy, weather and vehicles behaviour data. All the electric vehicles can significantly reduce the average recharging bill, as well as the facility owner gets lower electricity expenses.

Despite the significant research on automation systems verification, further work is needed on methods for the industrial scale verification of automated processes that are able to cover control software errors, sensor and actuator errors as well as design errors in the process to be controlled. In this paper, such an approach is based building on previous work on runtime verification using plant simulation models created during the plant design process. A framework for runtime verification is proposed based on keyword driven testing that is applied to the entire automated process rather than only to control software. Through the use of ontologies, the framework is made independent of any particular simulator. The approach is demonstrated with a case study from the mineral processing industry.

This paper presents an automatic software generation method for energy distribution automation. The method uses the distribution network structure represented in SCL format of the IEC 61850 standard and generates complete executable applications compliant with the IEC 61499 standard. Each equipment element is based on the componentized MVC design pattern and can be executed on a distributed network of HMI and control devices. The challenges solved in this work include design and automatic generation of a library of substation equipment elements according to the MVC design pattern and secondly, automatic generation of SCADA HMI based on the IEC 61850 specification. The design process is demonstrated in a laboratory case study.

This paper proposes a novel method of modelling requirements for smart grid automation systems that fits and complements the leading standards used for software development in smart grid: IEC 61850 and IEC 61499. Ontological representation is used to formally model the systems requirements and the integration of the requirement modelling to be used in conjunction with IEC 61850 specifications and IEC 61499 implementation. The proposed model is illustrated on a case study presented by the CIGRE working group where the system requirement in natural language was firstly modelled in ontology, then implemented in IEC 61499. Lastly, the resulting IEC 61499 control system was tested and validated against the system requirement by signal testing of the end control system.

Closed-loop model checking, a formal verification technique for industrial automation systems, increases the richness of specifications to be checked and reduces the state space to be verified compared to the open-loop case. To be applied, it needs the controller and the plant formal models to be coupled. There are approaches for controller synthesis, but little has been done regarding plant model construction. While manual plant modeling is time consuming and error-prone, discretizing a simulation model of the plant leads to state excess. This paper aims to solve the problem of automatic plant model construction from existing specification, which is represented in the form of plant behavior examples, or traces, and temporal properties. The proposed method, which is based on the translation of the problem to the Boolean satisfiability problem, is evaluated and shown to be applicable on several case study plant model synthesis tasks and on randomly generated problem instances.

An approach for automatic reconstruction of automation logic from execution scenarios using a metaheuristic algorithm is proposed. IEC 61499 basic function blocks are chosen as implementation language and reconstruction of Execution Control Charts for basic function blocks is addressed. The synthesis method is based on a metaheuristic algorithm that combines ideas from ant colony optimization and evolutionary computation. Execution scenarios can be recorded from testing legacy software solutions. At this stage results are only limited to generation of basic function blocks having only Boolean input/output variables.

An increasingly important goal of industrial automation systems is to continuously optimize physical resource utilization such as materials. Distributed automation is seen as one enabling technology for achieving this goal, in which networking controller nodes collaborate in a peer-to-peer way to form a new paradigm, namely industrial cyber-physical systems (iCPS). In order to achieve rapid response to changes from both high-level control systems and plant environment, the proposed self-manageable agent relies on the use of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) that improves flexibility and interoperability. It is enhanced by the autonomic service management (ASM) to implement software modifications in a fully automatic manner, thus achieving self-manageable and adaptive iCPS. The architecture design of the ASM is provided and integration with SOA-based execution environment is illustrated. Preliminary tests on self-management are completed using a case study of an airport baggage handling system.

Service-oriented architecture is increasingly applied in industrial cyber-physical systems to provide better flexibility and interoperability between various systems and devices. In the previous work ([3]) a service-based execution environment for IEC 61499 is proposed to enhance flexibility and interoperability in distributed automation systems. In this paper, we discuss questions raised by some readers, for example, performance overhead of the proposed method. Also, other clarifications are made in order to address possible confusions expressed in the received comments.

Owing to the semantic ambiguities, it has hindered the promotion of IEC 61499 in the field of industrial automation. In order to solve the thorny problem, this paper proposes an implementation scheme for performing formal modeling and simulation verification of semantics of functional block networks. Based on the synchrony hypothesis, the formal execution model is defined according to the fixed point semantics assuming that the behavior of a component functional block is monotonic. Subsequently, through specifying the evaluation of function blocks (FBs) as a process of solving the least-fixed point problem and transforming the network topology into a directed graph, a connectivity attenuation-based algorithm is put forward to ascertain the optimal scheduling policy of FBs with the minimum overhead. Finally, by conducting the experiment for an industrial application, the feasibility and validity of the presented implementation scheme is proved.

This paper proposes a method for the automatic generation of smart-grid automation systems software from specifications that includes physical system layout and domain-specific functional “recipes.” The generated software has component organization and implements a decentralized approach to smart grid control, which reduces complexity of automation systems design and modification. The proposed method relies on synergies of two industrial standards IEC 61850 and IEC 61499, which are used to represent a part of the specification and the resulting software model, respectively. Then, the specification model is created in a form of ontology and the generation is based on ontology transformation. The proposed method requires an extension to the Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) to support the change of an ontology axioms set for the purpose of ontology transformation. The proposed transformation language, called extended SWRL, is introduced and illustrated in use. The result shows the viability of eSWRL as an ontology transformation language when demonstrated in a power distribution case study system.

Industrial maintenance requires not only experienced service personnel to carry out the tasks but also up-to-date information about the target equipment and its environment. Accessing information required to execute the tasks is a common challenge for maintenance personnel. This paper presents a knowledge modeling approach and a technical architecture of a gateway system developed to support maintenance personnel with information combined from legacy data sources as well as from context ontology augmented with situational knowledge. The novelty of the approach is its unified object oriented style of knowledge representation encapsulating predefined queries and rules into ontology classes. The approach utilizes standard Semantic Web technologies, especially SPARQL query language and SPARQL Inferencing Notation SPIN. Feasibility of the approach is demonstrated with a simple maintenance use case example executed in an experimental knowledge gateway system.

Engineering and computer science have come up with a variety of techniques to increase the confidence in systems, increase reliability, facilitate certification, improve reuse and maintainability, improve interoperability and portability. Among them are various techniques based on formal models to enhance testing, validation and verification. In this paper, we are concentrating on formal verification both at runtime and design time of a system. Formal verification of a system property at design time is the process of mathematically proving that the property indeed holds. At runtime, one can check the validity of the property and report deviations by monitoring the system execution. Formal verification relies on semantic models, descriptions of the system and its properties. We report on ongoing verification work and present two different approaches for formal verification of IEC 61499-based programs. We provide two examples of ongoing work to exemplify the design and the runtime verification approaches.

This paper presents a novel approach to automation of flexible manufacturing systems with mechatronic intelligence and distributed control. The mechatronic intelligence layer is implemented using a combination of wireless sensor/actuator networks with service-oriented architecture, where services are located at the device level, as well as in local and global Clouds following the Arrowhead framework.

Formal methods - such as model checking - have definite advantages over more commonplace verification techniques. By providing proof of the analyzed systems' correctness, they are especially useful in domains that are under regulatory supervision, like the nuclear industry. The foremost challenge for wider adoption of model checking is the effort and the expertise required for formalizing functional requirements into verifiable properties. A particular challenge in verifying the application software of industrial process control systems is taking into account the different sequencing and timing issues that arise from, e.g., the dynamic behavior of the plant processes being controlled. In this paper, we review specification languages that are aimed at making formal methods more accessible. We have collected 1079 sample formal properties from practical model checking projects in the nuclear industry, and identified repeatedly occurring property types. We present our findings, and based on the sample data, evaluate the applicability of different approaches on user-friendly property specification.

District heating grids are complex systems where energy production has to match the consumption load while key system parameters like temperatures and pressures through the grid have to be kept within limits. The choice of a control strategy for the grid depends on the selected key performance indicators. The scientific contribution of this paper is a methodology for controlling the supply water temperature setpoint of a heat power plant using heat consumption predictions. The proposed algorithm aims to provide more heat energy to the difficult consumers when they need it the most. The required input information are the short term weather forecast, the supply hot water temperature propagation delays of the district heating grid as a function of the grid load level and consumption profiles based on historical data or heat consumption models. The methodology is applied on a simplified case study of a 120MW district heating grid. The results showed that within a specific supply water temperature range the performance of the grid in terms of minimum pressure difference at the consumers over a year was significantly better using the proposed proactive algorithm compared to simple reactive and constant temperature control strategies.

The main goal of climate control systems in data centres is to keep the temperature and humidity in a suitable level for computational devices. Therefore, cooling and humidification systems are essential parts of every Building Automation System (BAS), which is utilized in server rooms. Although the current climate control systems ensure appropriate thermal conditions to computational nodes such as servers, they waste substantial amount of energy. The main cause of this inefficiency is that the current climate control systems, which are responsible for thermal management of the data centres, follow rigid control strategies that maintain constant thermal conditions irrespective of climate changes caused by various computational loads in the plant. To address this issue, in our previous works we proposed a method of optimizing energy consumption in data centre cooling systems while maintaining an acceptable level of thermal comfort for CPUs in the server room. In this paper, we present the enhancement of our previous method by incorporating humidity control into it. The enhanced method consists of a thermal model of server room, and a simulation tool to find an energy efficient control strategy for the climate control system in different situations by comparing different control strategies. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been investigated via simulation and the result, which shows 41.5% reduction in total energy consumption is presented.

Industrial cyber-physical systems provide a vision of collaborative industrial automation systems with maximized flexibility and interoperability. Service-oriented architecture is considered as the key to enabling collaboration in industrial cyber-physical systems. On the device level, software components are expected to act as services that can be published and accessed from other distributed nodes. In this paper, a plug-and-play service component approach is proposed based on web service description language (WSDL) and IEC 61499 function blocks. Those services are able to be discovered by adopting device profiles for web services (DPWS). Plug-and-play software services are demonstrated on a building automation system example and future works on automatic service orchestration are discussed.

The protection system is a crucial part of the power grid. It protects people, equipment, and property. Reliability of such mission critical systems is of an extreme importance. Protection systems have strict requirements to reliability including dependability, security and timeliness. Although it undertakes rigorous testing and commissioning, it fails in some circumstances causing faults in the network, resulting in loss of power. It is hard to catch these hidden and undetectable errors in the design and installation. Since protection function is essentially a piece of code, formal methods can be used for rigorous testing of the software and provide definitive proof of the system properties. This paper proposes a formal model (to use in formal verification techniques) for protection systems. The paper develops closed loop model of the electrical network with its protection system. The model is developed in IEC 61499 language for the further generation of its formal model in SMV language. The model is validated via simulation and comparison with a comprehensive model of the electrical network in Matlab Simulink. In future work, the generated SMV model will be used to formally verify reliability requirements of the protection system.

The paper prototypes one enabler of the Internet of Energy that is autonomous collaborative energy storage devices. The case study investigates an intelligent parking lot of electric vehicles, using them as home energy storages. The vehicles implement decentralized battery coordination, where batteries exchange their State of Charge data along with getting online information on price and electricity demand. The study proposes a decentralised cooperation mechanism for the electric vehicles, which assumes mutual access to the energy stored in every battery in order to reduce the costs for everyone. The effect of such cooperation is evaluated under assumption of random presence of vehicles at the parking lot. The results demonstrated feasible costs reduction under different parking lot occupancy scenarios for every member of such a proposed collaborative society.

Closed-loop model checking, a formal verification technique for industrial automation systems, increases the richness of specifications to be checked and often helps to reduce size of the state space to be verified compared with the open-loop case. To be applied, it needs two components - the controller and the plant models - to be coupled. While there are approaches for obtaining controller models from implementation, specification or behavior examples, little has been done regarding automation of plant model construction. This paper aims to solve the problem of automatic plant model construction from existing specification, which is represented in the form of plant behavior examples and temporal properties.

The paper addresses the problem of reverse engineering a function block (FB) in situations when its source code is either not available or is too complex to understand. The proposed approach builds up on a recent method for reconstructing FBs based on testing and a search-based optimization algorithm. In our work the method is augmented with candidate solution verification using the NuSMV model checker. Verification is done in a closed-loop way using a manually constructed surrogate model of the plant and environment.

In this paper a speculative computation method for IEC 61499 function block (FB) systems is proposed to increase the level of parallelism when executing the FB system and thus to increase system's performance and to reduce response time on input events. Data and control dependencies in FB systems are recognized and defined as a basis for organizing speculative execution of FB algorithms. A simulation model of FB systems with speculative execution based on timed stochastic Petri nets is considered. In addition, the paper discusses the results of simulation experiments conducted in CPN Tools.

Industrial applications with reliable predictive features are becoming increasingly important. A tracking simulator is an example of an online simulation system with great capabilities that fills the gap left by other predictive applications. In a tracking simulator, a simulation model is run in parallel with a physical process controlled by the process' control system. At the same time, a tracking mechanism is used to keep the state of the simulation model as close as possible to the real process by continually adjusting parameters of the model. The selection of these parameters impacts directly on the quality of the tracking simulation results and it is a complex task in processes with a big number of variables. This paper presents two case studies of tracking simulation where the controlled parameters are selected using different techniques. The first case study deals with a laboratory-scale hot water generation process where the parameters' selection is performed manually. The second case study deals with a combined heat and power production process with major uncertainties in the process structure. In this case, we focus on the variance decomposition method used to determine the most suitable controlled parameters. Conclusions and future work are finally presented.

Formal methods and languages are used to prove the correctness of various industrial systems, especially mission-critical ones. They can also be viewed as a means to provide safety and correctness demonstration to the stakeholders of such systems. In domains such as nuclear power plant engineering, the benefits from structured safety evidences would seem obvious. However, most stakeholders in nuclear power industry are not even familiar with formal notations. As a result, to promote the applications of formal methods in practice, the first step is to make formal specification languages (FSLs) more accessible. With user-friendly FSLs, users can focus on safety requirements rather than on their sophisticated formalization. This paper, as a preliminary work towards an integrated framework supporting transparent safety demonstration, reviews existing approaches applied to facilitate requirements formalization and formal specifications. Moreover, the common features of user-friendly languages and their tool supports are also summarized.

The emergence of the Industrial Internet results in an increasing number of complicated temporal interdependencies between automation systems and the processes to be controlled. There is a need for verification methods that scale better than formal verification methods and which are more exact than testing. Simulation-based runtime verification is proposed as such a method, and an application of Metric temporal logic is presented as a contribution. The practical scalability of the proposed approach is validated against a production process designed by an industrial partner, resulting in the discovery of requirement violations.

This paper assesses the communication, information, and functional requirements of virtual power plants (VPPs). A conceptual formulation of the interoperability requirements, as well as a comparative study of their fulfillment by state-of-the-art communication techniques, is presented. VPP requirements are then mapped against services and information models of IEC 61850 and common information model (CIM) power utility automation standards. Proposals are given for extensions of the IEC 61850 standard to enhance the interaction between the VPP controller and the distributed energy resources. Finally, the methodology and concepts are applied to a specific VPP consisting of hydro and wind plants, solar photovoltaic (PV) power, and storage facilities. Several applications to provide grid services from the proposed VPP in an existing 50-kV grid are covered. The implementation of the VPP communication and control architecture in the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) of demonstration plant is also presented.

A district heating grid is a hot water pipeline grid used to transmit waste heat from CHP (Combined Heat and Power) production plants to buildings, where it is used for service water and space heating. Currently, broad use of district heating is limited to Northern Europe and some regions in Central Europe, but the European Union Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU and Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010/31/EU drive the widespread adoption of this technology in member states. Further, these directives push the introduction of significant renewable local energy production into these grids, creating a need for a smart district heating grid that is in many ways analogous to the smart electric grid. One major difference is that in a hot water pipeline grid, there are significant delays in energy propagation, so algorithms developed for the smart electric grid are not directly applicable. In this paper, an auction based heat trade mechanism is proposed between an auctioneer agent representing the CHP plant operator and prosumer agents representing end users with local solar thermal generation capacity. A predictive simulation is used by an auctioneer to account for the said delays in energy production and to determine the market price that best satisfies the performance indicators defined by the CHP plant operator. The proposed multi-agent system is demonstrated by co-simulating it against a model of a part of a Finnish municipality's district heating grid.

The IEC 61499 standard provides an executable model for distributed control systems in terms of interacting function blocks. However, the current IEC 61499 standard lacks appropriate timing semantics for the specification of timing requirements, reasoning on timing properties at the model level, and for the timing verification of a specific deployment. In this paper we address this fundamental shortcoming by proposing Real-Time-4-FUN, a real-time semantics for IEC 61499. The key property is the preservation of non-determinism, allowing us to reason on (and verify) timing properties at the model level without assuming any specific scheduling policy or stipulating specific order of execution for the deployment. This provides for a clear separation of concerns, where the designer can focus on properties of the application prior to, and separately from, deployment verification. The proposed timing semantics is backwards compatible to the current standard, thus allow for reuse of existing designs. The transitional property allows timing requirements to propagate to downstream sub-systems, and can be utilized for scheduling both at device and network level. Based on a translation to RTFM-tasks and resources, IEC 61499 models can be analyzed, compiled and executed. As a proof of concept the timing semantics has been experimentally implemented in the RTFM-core language and the accompanying (thread based) RTFM-RT run-time system.

In the online and tracking simulation context, precise model initialization is highly important to ensure the quality of predictions made based on simulation. This paper presents a hybrid approach for the initialization of tracking simulation systems that combines different techniques and utilizes the persistent communication between model and process in order to initialize the simulation model. In the proposed approach, the model initialization is performed throughout different stages. A model is first fed with initial conditions that are close to the physical plant's state. Then, the model is run to the same state as the physical system using a process control system. Possible mass or energy errors in the state of the simulation model are corrected before the actual tracking process is started. This paper first introduces previously studied initialization techniques for online simulation systems. Then the proposed hybrid initialization method is elaborated. Finally, its implementation is demonstrated using a simple but representative process system.

Cooling is an extremely important process in modern data centers. Cooling systems of server rooms ensure appropriate operation conditions to IT systems, such as servers and data storage, but, on the other side, they consume a lot of energy. Current control systems, which are installed in data centers and are responsible for thermal management of the facilities, are following conservative control strategies that maintain constant thermal conditions irrespective of computer load and outside temperature, thus efficient use of energy has not been appropriately addressed by them. In this paper, a method of optimizing energy consumption while maintaining an acceptable level of thermal comfort for CPUs in the server room is proposed. In the proposed method, a behavioral thermal model for server room should be created first, and then thermal behavior of the server room would be simulated under different circumstances using its thermal model, in order to find an optimum control strategy capable of retaining balance between thermal comfort and efficient use of energy. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been investigated via simulating a typical server room using MATLAB and SIMULINK and the results are demonstrated.

The quality of the software has an increasing impact on the performance, operation and ultimately the cost of industrial automation systems. Software metrics are necessary to assess the quality and to identify modules that impact cost of testing and maintenance. There is a number of software metrics available within a software engineering domain. However, there is a gap when it comes to evaluating IEC 61499 automation software. It is a challenging task too. IEC 61499 architecture embraces several software development techniques such as imperative languages, state machines and object oriented programming. This paper proposes the method for calculating metrics for IEC 61499 function blocks. These metrics were used to analyze power system protection software. Metrics confirmed expected results and reasonably described quality of software modules. With further improvement and expansion of the proposed set of metrics, it will be possible to accurately analyze and therefore improve automation software design and reduce cost.

Data centers have grown to become big energy consumers. At this scale of power consumption, data centers play cconsiderable role in electric networks operation. However, being ca relatively new industrial scale consumer, data center requires cmore careful consideration and research to uncover its specifics and better understand its requirements; and investigate data center's impact on regional grid. This paper reports on the work in progress and at this stage details an effort to understand the impact of dynamic server load of a data center on its power infrastructure and further on the grid; the effects of transient faults in power grid on performance of a data center. This will help regional grid operators to improve power balancing within cthe network to maintaining network stability avoiding failures and blackouts. The results of this work will be used in developing dynamic power balancing strategy for a smart grid containing large data centers.

Industrial cyber-physical systems require complex distributed software to orchestrate many heterogeneous mechatronic components and control multiple physical processes. Industrial automation software is typically developed in a model-driven fashion where abstractions of physical processes called plant models are co-developed and iteratively refined along with the control code. Testing such multi-dimensional systems is extremely difficult because often models might not be accurate, do not correspond accurately with subsequent refinements, and the software must eventually be tested on the real plant, especially in safety-critical systems like nuclear plants. This paper proposes a framework wherein high-level functional requirements are used to automatically generate test cases for designs at all abstraction levels in the model-driven engineering process. Requirements are initially specified in natural language and then analyzed and specified using a formalized ontology. The requirements ontology is then refined along with controller and plant models during design and development stages such that test cases can be generated automatically at any stage. A representative industrial water process system case study illustrates the strengths of the proposed formalism. The requirements meta-model proposed by the CESAR European project is used for requirements engineering while IEC 61131-3 and model-driven concepts are used in the design and development phases. A tool resulting from the proposed framework called REBATE (Requirements Based Automatic Testing Engine) is used to generate and execute test cases for increasingly concrete controller and plant models.

With the increasing computing power and network capacity, distributed automation systems are facing new challenges of handling massive amounts of distributed nodes within tight real-time constraints. The industrial cyber-physical systems is considered as the key to solve these complexities. In distributed industrial automation systems, there exists several execution semantics. In this paper, all existing execution semantics are summarized as a set of rules which are described by reconfigurable elements. During the simulation and verification of industrial cyber-physical systems, those rules are helpful to provide a generic runtime environment which can perform various execution semantics. This reconfigurable execution environment is demonstrated using a case study of a room lighting system.

This paper presents a cost optimization scheme for an electricity aggregator. The aggregator schedules the charging of the energy storages of its aggregated group of consumers to minimize the hourly spot market costs, while simultaneously maximizing its potential for participation in the reserve market. The optimization is formulated as a distributed iterative algorithm and its performance on the day-ahead and regulating power markets are evaluated based on simulations using actual market data. It was shown that increasing the consumption flexibility increased the overall profits markedly, while increasing their variance, up to a point.

The prospects of cyber-physical systems (CPS) have been well disseminated and recognized in diverse industries. In industrial automation domain, continuous research on CPS technologies has been funded strategically and globally. One important research challenge in industrial CPS is the modelling of physical processes in continuous domains connected with control systems in discrete domains. Such co-modelling must leverage state-of-the-art standards and tools for practicality. One feasible combination is the IEC 61499 standard for event-driven control and the Ptolemy II platform for heterogeneous model composition. Furthermore, by implementing the computational models of IEC 61499 in Ptolemy II, the behavioural discrepancies of the same IEC 61499 application under different execution semantics can be analysed. As a foundation work towards these goals, this paper investigates the principles of modelling basic IEC 61499 elements using existing Ptolemy II structures. It is aimed to provide some initial insights for engineering industrial CPS based on IEC 61499 and Ptolemy II.

This paper presents a model-checking framework for the purpose of design and implementation of robust smart grid applications based on distributed intelligence. The paper first introduces distributed grid intelligence approach to smart grid automation and related challenges of their verification. We then introduce the case study example and how model-checking can be applied to the presented system implemented in IEC 61499 standard. In the end we present the initial results of our model-checking application to smart grid applications. The paper will conclude with some issues faced during the research and corrective steps to address these issues in future.

Requirements engineering is the first stage in the development of any system. For safety-critical industrial systems like smart-grids, we must ensure that requirements are properly elicited, defined, analyzed and managed. This paper adapts the requirements framework developed in the CESAR European project, called the CESAR requirements meta-model, to support all aspects of requirements engineering for safety-critical systems. This enables the formalization of requirements in order to automate and assist in many aspects of later stages in the system development life cycle. Using a smart grid system from the FREEDM project, we illustrate that the adapted requirements engineering framework is comprehensive and rich for large safety-critical systems. We find that the use of the IEC 61499 function block standard provides an appropriate system modelling and implementation framework, which complements the strengths of the proposed requirements engineering framework. Traceability links between requirements and components of an IEC 61499 system model can help with automatic test case generation and formal analysis of requirements.

This paper addresses software design for cyber-physical automation systems that enables invariant properties of the physical system in case of software reallocation to different hardware. The proposed approach is based on the distributed reference architecture of IEC 61499 standard enhanced with a time-stamping mechanism. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach complements the abilities of IEC 61499 to maintain correct causality of distributed system execution with improved performance of physical system property called cyber-physical agnosticism. The time-stamped event semantics of IEC 61499 is introduced and mapped to the PTIDES execution model of Ptolemy II. We have experimentally validated that changing the model of computation in distributed automation to a time-stamped event-driven one can bring substantial improvements in flexibility and reconfigurability of cyber-physical automation systems.

The future distribution grid known as the smart grid will become more distributed in both infrastructure and control. IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 are two industrial standards addressing the challenges presented by a decentralized infrastructure. This paper contributes to system engineering of smart grid automation by enabling automatic generation of IEC 61499 control systems from IEC 61850 specifications. The areas which this paper fills is proposing a method to formally capture the logical node to logical node message passing which is lacking in the IEC 61850 standard. The proposed method is to represent an IEC 61850 protection scheme as a graph and then integrate it into the IEC 61850 ontology developed previously. The case study used is a sympathetic tripping protection scenario which demonstrates how the process of developing the graph model from the protection scheme and applying ontology rules to automatically generate the resultant IEC 61499 function blocks with meaningful connections between the logical nodes.

Data center evolved to become large power consumers. Its supporting infrastructure, such as cooling and power distribution, consumes resources e.g. electric power and money. In fact, most money is spent on power conditioning and cooling systems. Therefore, the efficiency of data center and power quality are important topics and can be addressed by careful design. There is a need for research into application of innovative design and state-of-the-art technology for optimizing power supply in data centers. The paper investigates potential of a state-of-the-art technology such as solid state transformer (SST). The simulation proves that SST has potential to improve operational efficiency. SST shows better control of voltage, current and reactive power of the facility, eliminating need for additional devices such as power conditioners and reducing power loss. These results lead to the next stage of the project that involves developing an optimal data center design with SST and investigating data center potential in demand response applications.

The paper addresses the problem of coverage testing of industrial automation software represented in the IEC 61499 standard, one of the recent standards for distributed control system design. Contrary to model-based testing (MBT), the paper focuses on implementation coverage, not model coverage. An approach based on evolutionary algorithms is presented which generates coverage test suites for both basic and composite IEC 61499 function blocks. It employs two third-party tools, FBDK and EvoSuite. The evaluation of the approach was performed on a set of control applications for two lab-scale demonstration plants. Results show that the approach is applicable and shows good performance at least on basic function blocks. The generated tests suites helped to discover several unreachable system parts, which pinpointed errors in the systems under test.

This paper presents an approach for automatic reconstruction of automation logic from execution scenarios using a metaheuristic algorithm. The IEC 61499 basic function blocks is chosen as implementation language and reconstruction of Execution Control Charts for basic function blocks is addressed. The synthesis method is based on a metaheuristic algorithm most closely related to ant colony optimization and evolutionary computation. Execution scenarios can be recorded from testing legacy software solutions. At this stage results are only limited to generation of basic function blocks having only Boolean input/output variables.

Cyber-physical systems show their impacts in many areas including industrial automation. Design and analysis of cyber-physical automation systems requires an integral model that takes into account tight coordination of control, communication and physical plants dynamics, thus creating a new research domain, namely industrial cyber-physical systems. This paper proposes a new execution semantics for the IEC 61499 standard that is based on the concepts of discrete-event systems augmented with timestamping of events to guarantee real-time constraints for industrial cyber-physical systems. The proposed execution semantics is implemented in an IEC 61499 execution environment and a case study on building automation systems is used to verify the results.

This article presents a methodology for intelligent, biologically inspired fault detection system for generic complex systems of systems. The proposed methodology utilizes the concepts of associative memory and vector symbolic architectures, commonly used for modeling cognitive abilities of human brain. Compared to classical methods of artificial intelligence used in the context of fault detection the proposed methodology shows an unprecedented performance, while featuring zero configuration and simple operations.

Change request management and Model Driven Engineering (MDE) are two key concepts for industrial automation software in today's competitive and fast changing environment. However, although there exist frameworks on general change management, they do not exploit the capabilities of MDE. This paper proposes a workflow to combine these two technologies, enabling the engineer responsible for the change to quickly and efficiently create analysis on the impact of the change, as well as the feasibility of a proposed solution. This result of the analysis is presented with concrete SysML model diagrams to better support decision making for a change request. One advantage of performing change management in SysML is the possibility to automate parts of the change analysis process; one step is automated as a proof-of-concept.

This paper proposes a framework for formal verification of industrial automation software in an intuitive way. The IEC 61499 function block architecture is assumed to be the input language, and the Intelligent Mechatronic Components (IMC) architecture is assumed as an underlying design pattern for the applications, which implies autonomous control logic in each IMC and their compositions to systems in a plug-and-play way. Then the system is automatically verified using model checking and the counter examples for the failed model checking properties are played back step-by-step and state-by-state in the simulation model that most industrial automation control systems would have built as the basis for initial testing. Net Condition Event Systems formalism (a modular extension of Petri net) is used to model the decentralized control logic and discrete-state dynamics of the plant. The model is then subjected to model checking using the ViVe/SESA tool chain. The method's application is illustrated using a simple pick and place manipulator. A closed loop model of Plant and Controller is used. Controller is extensively verified for safety, liveliness and functional properties of the robot. We then show how a counter example for deadlock detected by the model checker is played back in the simulation model for visualizing how exactly the system deadlocked.

The IEC 61499 Function Block standard describes an architecture to support the development and reuse of software components for distributed and embedded industrial control and automation systems. Often distributed over heterogeneous execution platforms, IEC 61499 applications are highly re-configurable; users can map individual function blocks to run on any available device. However, the standard does not allow differentiating between the capabilities of different devices in a heterogeneous platform. In this paper, we present a framework that facilitates the utilization of device-specific capabilities during the design of function block applications. Device capabilities are wrapped-up in Basic function blocks linking to low-level device drivers, allowing designers to access device features with ease during the design phase. The framework is completely compatible with the IEC 61499 standard, and remains highly flexible. As a case study, we show how function block applications utilizing low-level capabilities of Raspberry Pi devices can be written and deployed using the Holobloc FBDK development environment. This particular setting of using function blocks to program the Raspberry Pi also results in an ideal, low-cost research and teaching platform for distributed computers.

Although home automation (HA) systems in the wired domain are widely accepted by consumers, in today's industry, the mega trend is steering HA systems along a wireless way. Theoretically, wireless solutions are able to provide HA systems with more flexibility and thus reducing engineering costs. In practice, however, deploying wireless HA systems actually requires more costs and efforts due to the lack of versatile software tools to support the whole engineering process. This paper defines and evaluates the engineering workflow and architecture for home automation systems. The proposed architecture is studied and implemented based on web technologies and graphical configuration environments, with the aim of reducing workloads of HA engineers at every stage. A prototype has been implemented to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the proposed architecture.

In recent years, requirements for interoperability, flexibility, and reconfigurability of complex automation industry applications have increased dramatically. The adoption of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) could be a feasible solution to meet these challenges. The IEC 61499 standard defines a set of management commands, which provides the capability of dynamic reconfiguration without affecting normal operation. In this paper, a formal model is proposed for the application of SOAs in the distributed automation domain in order to achieve flexible automation systems. Practical scenarios of applying SOA in industrial automation are discussed. In order to support the SOA IEC 61499 model, a service-based execution environment architecture is proposed. One main characteristic of flexibility-dynamic reconfiguration-is also demonstrated using a case study example.

This paper proposes a new software composition method for automated machines that exploits their mechatronic modularity. It is demonstrated that desired behavior of a certain class of machines can be composed of behaviors of its mechatronic components, including fully decentralized scheduling and operation control. This aims at increased performance of software design and maintenance, as well as systems' flexibility and reconfigurability. The IEC 61499 Function Blocks' (FBs) architecture is used as an implementation platform that enables system-level simulation and transparency of deployment. A configurable pick-and-place (PnP) manipulator with decentralized control synthesized using the proposed approach is chosen as an illustrative example.

The nine papers in this special section cover a wide range of interesting smart grid topics related to the integration of distributed energy resources and grid components as well as to virtual power plants.

Time-driven and event-driven control models are two fundamental design paradigms applied in distributed control systems for synchronizing decentralized activities. This paper proposes a unified architecture for combining both approaches. The combination offers the best of both worlds' properties, such as the expressiveness of event-driven programming and the determinism of time-driven logic. The foundations of this symbiosis are the IEC 61499 Function Block standard providing event-driven distributed control architecture and the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol establishing the basis for highly-accurate time synchronization. The proposed time-complemented event-driven distributed control model aims at improving the modularity and flexibility of automation software with satisfactory control performance. The new control model has been compared with conventional centralized and distributed control approaches analytically and by simulation. The comparison results reveal that the proposed control model is efficient and flexible. Finally, a reference example has been used to demonstrate merits of the new approach.

Improvement of flexibility and interoperability is a usual concern of industrial automation systems developers. Service-oriented architecture is one approach promising improvement of flexibility and interoperability in existing distributed automation systems. However, the intelligent self-managing features cannot be fully achieved by just applying the service-oriented architecture. In order to improve efficiency and reliability of distributed automation systems, the service-oriented architecture is extended in this paper by autonomic service management. The design of the autonomic service manager is provided and some key features such as self-configuration, self-healing and self-optimization are demonstrated. The design of a flexible and interoperable execution environment is also illustrated. Some preliminary tests are completed with a case study.

In this paper an ontology driven approach to the design of control systems, in particular, control applications of IEC 61499 standard is proposed. The source ontology is an ontological description of control object (plant) while the target ontology is an ontological description of a control system implemented using an appropriate programming language. For the ontologies transformation an extension of SWRL (called eSWRL) is informally introduced. An example of transformation of the ontological description of a baggage handling system to the ontological description of a control application based on IEC 61499 function blocks (FB) is in detail considered. The corresponding transformation rules have been developed in the context of this example.

This paper presents a feasibility study of implementing parts of a distributed function block application as TinyOS modules running on Wireless Sensors as a part of Wireless Sensor Network. The paper first briefly describes underlying technologies and gives motivation for implementation of function blocks in TinyOS. The paper then presents implementation details about TinyOS realization of the one of the function block, which is a part of bigger distributed control application with the help of distributed function block application.

Function Blocks provides a means to model and program industrial control systems. The recently acclaimed IEC 61499 standard allows such system models to be partitioned and executed in a distributed fashion. At device level, such models are traditionally implemented onto programmable logic controllers that underneath have an operating system and a software run-time environment which implies high resource demands. However, there is a current trend to involve small embedded systems (so called Internet of Things devices) integrated into such distributed control systems. To this end, we seek to address the outsets for real-time execution of Function Block based designs onto light-weight controllers (MCUs) with limited resources (memory and CPU). Furthermore, we propose a mapping of the Function Block execution semantics onto the RTFM-kernel, and discuss opportunities for off-line (design time) analysis with respect to response time, overall schedulability and memory requirements.

Execution of business processes is an important factor that distinguishes residential and office buildings based on their energy usage. Unlike residential buildings, in offices workflows determine how and when energy-consuming devices have to be utilized. Thus, energy efficient building automation systems for office buildings should take into account the dynamic and unpredictable nature of business processes. However, the existing systems lack this important feature. In this paper, a model for combining automation and business processes is proposed. The model is implemented using IEC 61499 Function Block architecture, multi-agent systems and ontology. The proposed method has been examined in a meeting room scheduling scenario, in which meeting scheduling and automated control of the meeting room equipment have been combined and the energy usage has been measured to evaluate the improvement in efficient use of energy using the proposed model.

In process control engineering, most requirements for the control system are conventionally specified in piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs). The process design and control requests captured in P&IDs are manually interpreted and then implemented in process automation software. This manual development highly relies on multi-disciplinary expertise and becomes laborious and error-prone for complex systems. This paper reports a study on applying model-driven approach to facilitate the engineering workflow from P&IDs to control software. The foundations of this work are the IEC 62424 standard, which bridges the gap of information exchange between process design and control engineering, and the IEC 61499 standard, which provides the distributed control architecture for process measurement and automation. The model transformation pathway from IEC 62424 P&ID to IEC 61499 application has been formally defined and then demonstrated on a case-study water heating system for a three-floor building.

Much of the research on security of industrial automation systems has focused on countermeasures such as intrusion detection, certificate management or public key infrastructures. Due to limited resources, countermeasures should be focused to prevent the attacks with highest potential for damage. The impact of an attack can only be determined through a detailed analysis of the interactions of the automation system and the physical system under control. Attacks against single components are similar to ordinary component failures, so our focus is on deliberate damage to several components, since such scenarios are not considered in reliability engineering methods used for industrial automation systems. A simulation based security impact assessment method is proposed, using genetic algorithms to explore the range of possible attacks.

Factory Acceptance Testing should involve customer's experts and knowledge in defining, reading and validating tests, while keeping labor costs at moderate level. This involvement requires a testing approach, which hides implementation details and emphasizes domain terminology. Keyword driven testing is seen a viable test automation solution to reduce cost and enable customer involvement in acceptance testing. We propose an approach for adaptation of Keyword driven testing framework to IEC 61131-3 industrial process control applications. It utilizes importing of application elements, presented with PLCopen XML, and transforming them to proxy objects to be used as variables in test code, with domain specific names. Benefits include simplification of test and keyword specifications and hiding of implementation details from testers.

We face a glut of languages for programming distributed software today. However, only a few languages have proven their potential with wider practical use in different domains of computing. We picked two such languages, meant for different domains, to see if they could cross-pollinate and enrich one another. Specifically, we chose SystemJ, a language to program distributed embedded systems, and IEC61499, the next generation standard for distributed industrial automation control software. Unsurprisingly, we found similar structures and artifacts between the two. We also found significant differences mainly due to differing domain-specific requirements. This comparison leads to observations and guidelines for improving both languages, and we discuss directions towards an “ideal” distributed software programming language.

The complexity of modern industrial automation systems means that designing with change in mind is a necessity. Event-driven and time-driven programming paradigms each have their own benefits for the development of distributed systems control. However, flexibility and reconfiguration will always be required as new technologies are introduced and increased distribution results in greater chances for point failures. Dynamic runtime based reconfiguration is desired to reduce any experienced downtime. Implementation of reconfiguration is problematic, particularly as the system grows in size. System behavior arises from complex interactions between distributed modules, making their reconfiguration inherently difficult. This paper proposes the unification of time-driven and event-driven control paradigms for the purpose of unification. A formal model discussing the suitability of this architecture for reconfiguration purposes is introduced. Each reconfiguration mechanism for the architecture and design patterns is then implemented in the IEC 61499 function block standard.

IEC 61850 is a new standard for substation automation which attempts to standardize communication within substations by introducing a set of new communication services operating over the Ethernet framework. The communication of interest for protection is IEC 61850 GOOSE messaging. GOOSE messaging is a peer to peer service designed for protection applications within substations. There is a growing interest in filling the void of control in the IEC 61850 standard. The Intelligent Logical Nodes (iLN) architecture is one such solution which uses IEC 61499 as the complimentary control system for IEC 61850. The missing component in the iLN architecture is the various communication profiles introduced in the IEC 61850 standard. This paper presents an implementation of IEC 61850 GOOSE messaging for the IEC 61499 IDE that implements event-driven execution semantics by means of the SharpPcap library.

The complexity and scale of automation industry applications have increased substantially in recent years, posing new challenges to fulfill growing requirements for reusability, interoperability, flexibility and reconfigurability. The adoption of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) could be a feasible solution to meeting these challenges. Based on a comparison between the conceptual frameworks of SOAs versus modern standards for distributed automation, a methodology is proposed for the application of SOAs in the distributed automation domain. The implementation of the Service-Oriented Architecture based PLC execution environment is demonstrated on a case study.

This research proposes an innovative agent-based design method known as “MIRA” (Modular, Intelligent and Real-time Agent) to represent products as well as mechatronic components in manufacturing systems. The new agent exploits semantic knowledge representation of its capabilities, tasks and surroundings, and upon which performs rule-based reasoning leading to generation of the IEC 61499 Function Blocks for real time and distributed control of production systems. This approach facilitates product's mass customization through development of intelligent mechatronic systems. Furthermore, the MIRA approach is exemplified in a food production case study.

The interoperability between various automation systems is considered as one of the major character of future automation systems. Service-oriented Architecture is a possible interoperability enabler between legacy and future automation systems. In order to prove the interoperability between those systems, a verification framework is essential. This paper proposes a configurable cloud-based validation environment for interoperability tests between various distributed automation systems. The testing framework is implemented in a multi-layer structure which provides automated closed-loop testing from the protocol level to the system level. The testing infrastructure is also capable for simulating automation systems as well as wireless sensor networks in the cloud. Test cases could be automatically generated and executed by the framework.

This paper proposes new type of software components for distributed automation systems that are capable of adapting to the computational load conditions by migrating to other devices. The migration is seen as a basic mechanism of bio-inspired heuristic search for more optimal overall load across distributed network of devices. The adaptable components can form digital ecologies self-configuring themselves after changes in the environment. The proposed architecture is prototyped using extended IEC 61499 distributed reference architecture. A simple use case of a baggage handling system is used for illustration.

This paper presents an introductory step in the automatic generation of distributed control software for power distribution automation systems based on Ontology Driven Engineering enabled by industrial standards IEC61850 and IEC61499. The novelty of this approach is the ability of automatically generating the logical connections between the logical nodes. The paper covers the several stages of the transformation process, such as developing the IEC61850 ontology and the ontology transformation rules. The developed IEC61850 ontology includes the logical nodes descriptions and additional contextual relations between the logical nodes which is lacking in the IEC61850 SCL configuration language. Then, the IEC61850 ontology is transformed to an existing IEC61499 ontology, adding classes of IEC61850 logical nodes as IEC61499 function blocks in the IEC61499 ontology. The means of the transformation of the ontologies is based on the eSWRL sematic web rules language, an extension to the rule language SWRL. The end result is the development of an IEC61850 ontology and a set of eSWRL rules which facilitates the ontology transformation.

Agent technology in the power system domain is the realm of theory and laboratory simulation. Agent-based systems, due to their complexity of concept and design, may appear difficult to implement and maintain, and hence more expensive, which is a prohibiting factor against using the new technology. Designing a decision-making system for an agent is one of the most complex tasks in the development of agent-based systems. Designing a decision-making system enabling proactive behaviours while maintaining reasonable complexity is a challenge. This paper proposes an deliberative decision making system for an industrial agent which allows pro-active behaviour of the agent while maintaining reasonable complexity. It employs a combination of practical and procedural reasoning principles. The formal definition of the proposed deliberative layer is derived in the paper. The procedural reasoning is based on IEC 61850 Logical Node concept and implemented with IEC 61499 reference architecture. The proposed agent architecture is demonstrated on the Fault Location Isolation and Supply Restoration application and validated via so-simulation with Matlab model of the sample distribution network.

This paper presents the ways of constructing routing algorithms in mechanical transport systems based on knowledge. It is assumed that the experts observing system behavior applies his experience by designating subsystems with a specific behavior. To create routing tables, a model of fuzzy temporal hypergraph was used. We consider fixed and dynamic routing, given modifications of Dijkstra's algorithm for the case of fuzzy temporal hypergraphs.

The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), initially developed for general purpose computing, is becoming increasingly popular in industrial automation, especially due to the growing importance of distributed measurement and control systems, Internet of Things and wireless sensor network infrastructures. There are two serious gaps in the current implementations of SOA for automation: the lack of a proper standard form for representing the logical relation between services at the system level, and, in particular, lack for a proper visual representation format enabling intuitive understanding and reconfiguration of services during the system lifecycle. In this paper, it is shown how these gaps can be filled using the IEC 61499 function block architecture in the most intuitive and natural way. The ideas are illustrated on example of systems, composed form intelligent mechatronic devices. Such features, as software reuse, flexibility, reconfigurability and scalability are demonstrated. The paper shows complementarity of the SOA and IEC 61499.

The second edition of the IEC 61499 standard aims to clarify the interpretation ambiguities of function block's execution semantics. This resolves the pivotal issue of realizing portable and interoperable implementations of the IEC 61499 reference architecture. As the IEC 61499 standard is about entering its technology takeoff phase, these clarifications are timely and important. It is hence expected that more innovators of automation software tools, runtime environments, and control hardware will start adopting this technology. To assist such adoption, this paper presents a study of existing IEC 61499 tools' portability issues. In particular, the features of currently active IEC 61499 tools, such as FBDK, ISaGRAF, 4DIAC, and nxtStudio are outlined. Their incompatibility issues due to different execution semantics are exemplified. Moreover, it is also illustrated in this paper how these issues can be addressed by complying with the updated norms.

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.

This paper presents a practical framework to bring the cyber-physical block diagram models, such as Ptolemy, to the practice of industrial automation. Cyber-Physical Component (CPC) architecture is suggested. CPC aims at the improvement of design, verification and validation practices in automation of Smart Grid. IEC 61499 standard is used as a basis for this architecture. This architecture addresses several design software and system engineering challenges: right equilibrium between abstract representation and “executability” and round-trip engineering. An CPC exhibit such properties as portability, interoperability and configurability thanks to the reliance on open standards. The use of time stamp based execution paradigm adds determinism and predictability at the run-time.

Improving software development efficiency and reusability of existing programs is an important topic for industrial automation. Recently, modern software paradigms have been introduced into the automation domain such as object-oriented programming using the IEC 61131-3 standard and component-based design based on the IEC 61499 standard. In this paper, another software paradigm - service-oriented architecture is applied to the software design for automation programs. The proposed SOA pattern is based on a multi-layered structure with enhanced reusability and flexibility. A case study of water heating system is implemented to prove the concept of SOA paradigm.

During daily operations of a building, a significant amount of energy is spent on indoor illumination. The choice of different lighting sources and control strategies can notably affect the energy consumption. To achieve the most economical lighting design, a number of factors from both physical and cyber perspectives must be considered. More importantly, these factors must be taken into account during early design phrases of building architecture and automation systems. This paper proposes an infrastructure towards the cyber-physical approach for prototyping indoor illumination. In particular, the distributed lighting automation system is modeled using the IEC 61499 standard. The lighting energy performance of a building is evaluated according to the EN 15193 standard. By integrating the evaluation methodology of energy efficiency in the development of lighting automation systems, adequate indications regarding the correlation between physical and cyber designs can be revealed. The proposed design approach has been demonstrated on a case study house, where impacts of different lighting control strategies on the house's energy efficiency can be quantitatively compared.

The intention of this paper is to provide an overview of using agent and service-oriented technologies in intelligent energy systems. It focuses mainly on ongoing research and development activities related to smart grids. Key challenges as a result of the massive deployment of distributed energy resources are discussed, such as aggregation, supply-demand balancing, electricity markets, as well as fault handling and diagnostics. Concepts and technologies like multiagent systems or service-oriented architectures are able to deal with future requirements supporting a flexible, intelligent, and active power grid management. This work monitors major achievements in the field and provides a brief overview of large-scale smart grid projects using agent and service-oriented principles. In addition, future trends in the digitalization of power grids are discussed covering the deployment of resource constrained devices and appropriate communication protocols. The employment of ontologies ensuring semantic interoperability as well as the improvement of security issues related to smart grids is also discussed.

This paper proposes a new methodology of migration from IEC 61131-3 PLCs to IEC 61499 function blocks. The aim of this migration process is to recreate IEC 61131-3 applications in IEC 61499 implementations with equivalent execution behavior. The formal model of the IEC 61131-3 standard for migration and cyclical execution model is defined. This method also creates a foundation for correct-by-design development tools and automatic migration between the IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499 standard. Formal migration rules based on ontology mappings, restoring execution model including tasks and programs scheduling and variables mapping with different access levels, are provided. A transformation engine for importing PLC code, mapping from PLC ontology model to function block model and code generation is implemented based on the ontological knowledge base and semantic query-enhanced web rule language. The migration approach is demonstrated on a simple airport baggage handling system.

This paper presents a survey on model-driven design and validation approaches for distributed automation and control systems with essentially decentralized logic. Driven by the goals of flexibility and performance improvement, researchers have explored several approaches to distributed systems design, including multiagent systems, middleware, and distributed component architectures. This also results in several international standards and reference architectures, such as IEC 61499, OpenRTM, IEC 61804, etc. Verification and validation of distributed systems is another grand challenge. This survey presents methods of using traditional and novel modeling and simulation tools in the context of distributed systems. In particular, this paper then focuses on the developments related to IEC 61499 standard, which displays a range of research directions that aim to fill the gaps in the distributed systems modeling, implementation, and validation.

Distributed control systems are widely deployed to all areas in industrial automation. However, a systematic approach to the design and programming of distributed automation and control systems is not clearly defined. This paper analyzes the differences between two control system architectures defined in IEC Standards — IEC 61131-3 for centralized control with programmable controllers (PLCs) vs. IEC 61499 for the use of function blocks (FBs) in distributed automation and control — in an attempt to identify the essential elements — the sine qua non — for such programming. Through this analysis, two indispensable elements — software modularity and the use of communication services — are identified. Guidelines are given for the use of these elements in both PLC and FB systems, and the application of these guidelines is illustrated in a case study of airport baggage handling systems.

This paper presents a model-based design approach for description of mechatronic systems using System Modeling Language (SysML) in order to facilitate modification and customization of existing intelligent mechatronic components and their use in new applications. This approach enables re-use and integration of the existing mechatronic software components to meet system design requirements and minimize the design and commissioning complexity of the control systems. A case study with a delta robot used in a colour sorting application demonstrates how its control system is tailored to meet the desired system behaviour.

Building Automation and Control System (BACS) is a promising contributor for conserving building energy consumption. This paper proposes a virtual smart metering approach as an integral part of BACS for the demand control of building services. It can assist consumers to monitor the energy consumption and take measures to rationalize their energy efficiency at a finer granularity. This virtual smart metering enables the simulation-based energy efficiency evaluation of different automation and control strategies. It also establishes the load controlling infrastructure for further Demand Side Management at building side. A prototype lighting control system using virtual smart metering has been developed, where different control strategies can be simulated. It has been demonstrated that how intelligent lighting control taking daylight luminance and occupant presence into account can achieve better energy efficiency.

Interoperability is one of the most important features expected from distributed automation architectures. Achieving interoperability involves addressing issues related to synchronization of behavior, communication protocols, and data presentation formats. In this paper a case study on deployment of an automation application to a network of control devices with three different hardware/software platforms is presented to exploit benefits of the IEC 61499 architecture. Firstly, an overall control application with essentially distributed logic was created. This control application was then validated using closed-loop simulation and finally deployed to a network of control devices.

This paper presents a visualization architecture to facilitate automated design for distributed automation applications. CAD is used as a source of software models as it was found to provide detailed physical information, particularly for visualization. The approach assumes a fully distributed control architecture, with each system component functionally encapsulated into IEC 61499 Function Block. A baggage handling system is used as a running example throughout this work. Simulation models of the plant were executed in closed-loop with controllers. A corresponding 3D visualization was generated and parameterized based on CAD drawing, then linked to the simulation for a live view of the plant model.

This paper presents an investigation into the implementation of reconfigurable industrial applications using the IEC 61499 standard. An architecture and design methodology is proposed to allow for the addition of reconfigurable elements to existing IEC 61499 applications. The commercially available NxtForte IEC 61499 platform was chosen for experiments. The notion of state resumption is discussed along with a corresponding application level implementation. Deficiencies of the standard for promoting reconfiguration are outlined and some extensions are then proposed to streamline the development of reconfigurable applications.

This paper proposes a component-based design pattern for distributed automation programs. This design pattern aims to improve reusability of programs and reduce redevelopment time. Component-based design issues in both IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499 platforms are analyzed. Then the design pattern is proposed in a form of a set of rules. The pattern combines properties of service-oriented architecture (SOA) with multi-layered organization and engineering benefits of component organization. This design pattern is applied to both IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499 on example of a real airport baggage handling automation system. The result proves that the design pattern brings convenience for developers of automation programs and improves reusability of software components.

Electric grid automation is designed so that any single component failure can be isolated, and that supply can be quickly restored to the remainder of the network. However, environmental hazards such as flooding may cause the failure of several components in the grid, resulting in an unforeseen loss of power. Automation may be helpful in limiting the consequences of environmental hazards, but no methods exist for assessing grid automation against plausible hazards. Such a method is proposed in this paper. An underground electric grid, its automation and flood in the environment are simulated, and interfaces are defined so that flood, steam and condensing water may damage components in the grid simulation.

This paper presents implementation of one of the Distributed Grid Intelligence (DGI) applications: Load Balancing, using the IEC61499 architecture. This enables system level design of distributed load balancing application with a direct pathway to deployment to hardware. The use of IEC 61499 improves scalability, re-configurability and maintainability of automation software. The application was deployed to commercial programmable automation devices and embedded controller (ARM based TS-7800). The application was verified using co-simulation approach: control and power system simulated using Matlab on PC networked with the number of distributed hardware running load balance algorithm. The use of IEC 61499 facilitates deployment of hardware independent function block model to the variety of compliant hardware.

This paper presents a novel framework for designing and simulating the decentralized control of Building Management Systems (BMS) in an object-orientated way. The proposed approach follows physical structure of building as a starting point for its automation software development. The architecture proposed enables simulation in the loop with plant model that can be created without extra development efforts. The decentralized control logics of the BMS subsystems can be developed independently from the deployment configurations thanks to the properties of IEC 61499 reference architecture.

This paper presents an implementation of Plug-and-Play for the FREEDM system with IEC61499 function blocks. The FREEDM system is the envisioned next generation power distribution infrastructure which integrates DRER/ER with the legacy grid and is enabled by novel power electronics and distributed control. Plug-and-Play device integration is one of the key features of the FREEDM system that allows distributed renewable energy resources and distributed energy storage devices to be added or removed from the FREEDM distributed intelligent devices seamlessly. IEC61499 is an open standard for designing distributed control systems, which is investigated in the FREEDM project as an underlying system-level software architecture. Plug-and-Play is achieved by dynamic reconfiguration in IEC61499 to create the necessary function blocks during runtime for enabling Plug-and-Play between the DRER and the DGI devices. The developed Plug-and-Play technology is incorporated into the FREEDM infrastructure implemented in IEC61499 function blocks.

The agent based solutions are successfully applied in research and have impressive results. However, at the present, the agent technology is the realm of theory and laboratory simulation. The paper presents an attempt to bridge the gap. To facilitate migration of agent technology to the field, we propose to apply industrial standards such as IEC 61499 to design and implement the agent based algorithms. IEC 61499 is reference architecture for development of distributed systems. As an example of agent based solution to power system problem we consider Incremental Cost Consensus (ICC) algorithm for solving economic dispatch problem. The original system was simulated in Matlab. The agent based 5 node system was developed using IEC 61499 and deployed to 5 industrial controllers, then tested. With the proposed approach the agent algorithms can be designed, tested and deployed within one framework without the overhead of re-coding the solution for different stages. The proposed approach enables directly executable agent solutions and paves the way to the industrial adoption of the agent technology in power system domain.

This paper proposes a rule-based approach for automatic configuration of mechatronic components in a novel agent-based manufacturing automation architecture known as MIRA, implemented using Prolog. Through this method, MIRAs are enriched with semantic knowledge representation and, based on that, perform some reasoning and decision making (both at the design stage and even during the operation) to achieve the desired goals. This approach is illustrated in a simple case study in which composition of a reconfigurable pick-and-place robot with various linear cylinders is achieved through rule-based reasoning.

IEC 61850 is the new standard for substation automation. One of the IEC 61850 communication services, designed specifically for protection within the substation automation system is GOOSE messaging. GOOSE messaging is a peer to peer communication protocol aiming to satisfy the stringent communication requirements within protection systems operating over the Ethernet communication framework. One of the on-going research topics in this area is extending capabilities of IEC 61850 to represent control logic by combining it with component software architecture of the IEC 61499 standard. The Intelligent Logical Nodes (iLN) architecture is one such solution which combines the two standards. This development led to the need to implement communication services of IEC 61850 by means of IEC 61499. This paper presents such an implementation of IEC 61850 GOOSE messaging using IEC 61499 Service Interface Function Blocks implemented by means of the WinPCap library.

This paper presents implementation of the Distributed Grid Intelligence (DGI) applications such as Intelligent Fault Management and Load Balancing using IEC61499 reference architecture. This enables system level design of distributed applications with a direct pathway to deployment to hardware. The use of IEC 61499 improves scalability, re-configurability and maintainability of automation software. Both applications were verified using co-simulation approach: control and power system simulated on PCs, and power system simulation on a PC networked with the number of distributed hardware running control algorithm. Both DGI applications were deployed to commercial programmable automation devices and embedded controllers. The use of IEC 61499 facilitates deployment of hardware independent function block model to the variety of compliant hardware. The paper also discusses distributed SCADA concept with IEC61499 implemented with the so-called Composite Automation Type (CAT) function blocks which combine functional and visual components. These blocks are used to implement human-machine interface of the FREEDM Smart Grid demonstrator reacting on plugging and unplugging of energy resources.

The paper proposes a novel computer-aided model-based system engineering process for Smart Gird applications. The process is supported by the SysGrid tool that plays the roles of system configurator and device configurator. The design process starts with single line diagrams which are automatically transformed to executable function block specifications. The process is based on the Smart Grid control architecture that is a heterogeneous network of controllers communicating in a peer to peer manner. This “artificial nervous system” of the Smart Grid will be capable of self-healing and dynamic adaptation to renewable generation and ever-changing loads. The tool supports system-level design of automation logic in the form of function block networks with compliancy to IEC 61499. The capabilities of SysGrid are demonstrated through the process of designing a distributed protection application.

This article presents a new formal approach to validation of on-the-fly modification of control software in automation systems. The concept of downtimeless system evolution (DSE) is introduced. The DSE is essentially based on the use of IEC 61499 system architecture and formal modeling and verification of the hardware and software of an automation device. The validation is performed by means of two complimentary techniques: analytic calculations and formal verification by model-checking.

The IEC 61499 standard is designed for distributed control and proposes new visual form of programming using block diagrams with embedded state machines and unlimited hierarchical nesting and distribution across networking devices. Such visual programs require new methods of automatic syntactic and semantic analysis. This paper proposes a new approach to semantic analysis using multiple-layered ontological knowledge representation and rule-based inference engine. Its working is demonstrated on example.

This paper presents one perspective on recent developments related to software engineering in the industrial automation sector that spans from manufacturing factory automation to process control systems and energy automation systems. The survey's methodology is based on the classic SWEBOK reference document that comprehensively defines the taxonomy of software engineering domain. This is mixed with classic automation artefacts, such as the set of the most influential international standards and dominating industrial practices. The survey focuses mainly on research publications which are believed to be representative of advanced industrial practices as well.

It is our pleasure to present this Special Section on Software Engineering in Industrial Automation of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, which reports the state-of-the-art on the subject, including review papers and new contributions to this field. This Special Section, covers a wide range of subjects, namely, formal foundations of software engineering, automatic synthesis of programs, the use of knowledge intensive Semantic Web models in manufacturing automation, multi-agent technologies, novel synergies between model-driven engineering and aspect-oriented design and design patterns. Also, the issues related to dependability and correct by design methods are discussed.

This paper presents a novel model-driven software architecture for systems with high degree of redundancy and modularity of the equipment. The architecture is based on totally decentralized control. It combines adaptability and robustness of multi-agent control architectures with portability and interoperability benefits of IEC 61499 function block architecture. The architecture has been successfully proven feasible on a number of field trials, including modeling and implementation of a medium-scale airport baggage handling control. Deployment was done on distributed networks consisting of configurations ranging from a few to dozens of communicating control nodes. The work confirmed the ability to deliver similar functional characteristics as centralized systems but in a distributed implementation. Performance testing and development verified sufficient performance and software life-cycle benefits.

This paper proposes a cosimulation environment for “hardware in the loop” or “software in the loop” validation of distributed controls in a Smart Grid. The controls are designed using model-driven engineering with the IEC 61499 Function Block architecture. These are connected with plant models, for example, in Matlab/Simulink, through communication channels such as UDP or TCP sockets. This solution enables multi-closed-loop plant-controller simulation. The communication between plant and controller is event-driven. In order to perform a realistic simulation, the proposed solution takes into account computation and communication delays on the controller side in Function Blocks and compensates model time on the plant side in Matlab model accordingly. Causality and accuracy of the method have been formally addressed. This approach has been tested and demonstrated with several Smart Grid-related examples.

This paper introduces an approach to automatic verification of mechatronic systems designed as plug-and-play of Intelligent Mechatronic Components (IMC). The control logic of the system is composed from autonomous controllers of the IMCs and is automatically verified using model-checking. Net Condition Event Systems formalism (a modular extension of Petri net) is used to model the decentralized control logic and discrete-state dynamics of the plant. A re-configurable pick and place robot is used as an illustrative example. At first a three cylinder pick and place robot is used to design our new master-slave architecture for controller design and then the NCES models are re-used without much modification in a new 6 cylinder pick and place robot. The control model is then subjected to model checking using the ViVe/SESA model checker. A multi closed loop model of Plant and Controller is used and controller is extensively verified for safety, liveliness and functional properties of the robot. Computational Tree Logic (CTL) is used to specify these properties.

The electric energy system is changing more and more into a Smart Grid. A key technology in order to transform the actual grid is the information and communication technology. This means that advanced management, automation, control and communication concepts and systems have to be developed in order to cope with changing and challenging future requirements in the intelligent grid; especially the large-scale integration of distributed energy systems and electric vehicles. As a result of this trend, the future grid will consist of a huge number of intelligent electronic devices in order to manage the distributed and complex nature of Smart Girds. In order to guarantee a high level of interoperability, which is a major requirement for Smart Grids and its related components and devices, the International Electrotechnical Commission has introduced the IEC 61850 standard for power utility automation. Since it covers only interoperability and communication issues, a proper design, modeling and implementation approach is required. The main aim of this paper therefore is to discuss the usage of IEC 61850 together with the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed automation and the development of a related IEC 61499 Compliance Profile for Smart Grids.

A new methodology of transformation from IEC 61131-3 PLCs to IEC 61499 function blocks is proposed in this paper. The aim of this process is to recreate IEC 61131-3 programs in the IEC 61499 format automatically. The original PLC cyclical execution is fulfilled in the IEC 61499 function blocks. Definitions of IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499 ontology model are provided. Also the ontology mapping between those two standards is also achieved by using the SQWRL. A small airport baggage handling system implemented in the IEC 61131-3 PLC is converted to the IEC 61499 function block as a demonstration.

This paper proposes a step-by-step approach for developing modular and reusable logic controllers of mechatronic systems. Following that, it presents the results of employing three distributed control methods, including master-slave, peer-to-peer and independent controllers on a pick-and-place robot as a simple showcase of implementing a distributed control system on industrial applications, using the emerged IEC 61499 standard. Moreover, it addresses possibilities and challenges of using each approach.

This paper presents an investigation into the migration from standard centralized control to modular, distributed control for a fruit packing machine. Along with control that was developed using IEC 61499, a simulation model of the plant was developed in parallel. Both were deployed to hardware to demonstrate seamless testing using a single underlying architecture. A visualization of the simulation model was created to view the simulation live. Comparisons between IEC 61499 and traditional techniques were outlined during the implementation. Difficulties in applying commonly used traditional design elements to the IEC 61499 standard were addressed.

This paper proposes solutions for distributed protection applications, to improve current and design of future protection schemes. This solution utilises advantages of fast and reliable peer-to-peer communication of IEC 61850 and interoperability and configurability of IEC 61499. The integration of the two standards improves protection schemes by decreasing fault clearing times and minimizes the effect of short circuit faults on sensitive loads. Additional advantages include the reductions of the number of hard-wired connections, especially in a large substation where all protection IEDs has a significant number of binary inputs and relay outputs. IEC 61499 is an open standard for designing distributed control systems to promote portability, interoperability and configurability, i.e. vendor independent, flexible and robust solutions. IEC 61499 can be used to represent programmable logic of power system devices, in a standard form and in a vendor independent way. The proposed distributed protection system is implemented and simulated using the developed co-simulation environment.

The IEC 61499 Function Block architecture is considered as the next generation of programmable control technology promoting distributed control in automation. In this paper, the redesign methodologies from the PLC control to the event-driven architecture of IEC 61499 function blocks are proposed. A general set of translation steps and mapping rules for redesigning applications from IEC 61131-3 PLC to IEC 61499 Function Blocks is provided. Three different redesign approaches are proposed: object-oriented conversion approach, object-oriented reuse approach, and class-oriented approach. These approaches are to be applied for different design styles of the source PLC code. The data handling efficiency of all approaches is investigated. An airport baggage handling system is chosen as the case study for the redesign process. The rules and limitations are summarized and guidelines for the redesign process are provided.

The international standard IEC 61499 for the design of distributed industrial control systems defines an abstract model of function blocks (FB) which allows many different semantic interpretations. As a consequence, in addition, so-called execution models were proposed to specify the execution order of FBs. The variety of models leads to the incompatibility of tools and hinders the portability of automation software. To achieve a degree of execution model independence, in this paper, design patterns are suggested that make FB systems-robust to changes of execution semantics. A semantic-robust pattern is defined for a particular source execution model. The patterns themselves are implemented by means of the FB apparatus and therefore are fairly universal. The patterns can be defined and implemented using the FB transformations expressed in terms of Attributed Graph Grammars.

This review paper discusses the industrial and research activities around the IEC 61499 architecture for distributed automation systems. IEC 61499 has been developed to enable intelligent automation where the intelligence is genuinely decentralized and embedded into software components, which can be freely distributed across networked devices. With the recent emergence of professionally made software tools and dozens of hardware platforms, IEC 61499 is getting recognition in industry. This paper reviews research results related to the design of distributed automation systems with IEC 61499, the supporting tools and the aspects related to the execution of IEC 61499 on embedded devices. The promising application areas of IEC 61499 include flexible material handling systems, in particular airport baggage handling, flexible reconfigurable manufacturing automation, intelligent power distribution networks and SmartGrid, as well as the wide range of embedded networked systems.

This paper presents a new approach to power system automation, based on distributed intelligence rather than traditional centralized control. The paper investigates the interplay between two international standards, IEC 61850 and IEC 61499, and proposes a way of combining of the application functions of IEC 61850-compliant devices with IEC 61499-compliant “glue logic,” using the communication services of IEC 61850-7-2. The resulting ability to customize control and automation logic will greatly enhance the flexibility and adaptability of automation systems, speeding progress toward the realization of the smart grid concept.

In this paper we discuss the problem of migration from the PLC control to the event-driven and component based architecture of IEC 61499 function blocks. We are using a conveyor system to illustrate three different migration methods: object-oriented in basic function block, object-oriented in composite function block and class-oriented in basic function block. The advantages and limitations are summarized and guideline for migration is provided.

Airport baggage handling is a field of automation systems that is currently dependent on centralized control systems and conventional automation programming techniques. In this and other areas of manufacturing and materials handling, these legacy automation technologies are increasingly limiting for the growing demand for systems that are reconfigurable, fault tolerant, and easy to maintain. IEC 61499 Function Blocks is an emerging architectural framework for the design of distributed industrial automation systems and their reusable components. A number of architectures have been suggested for multiagent and holonic control systems that incorporate function blocks. This paper presents a multiagent control approach for a baggage handling system (BHS) using IEC 61499 Function Blocks. In particular, it focuses on demonstrating a decentralized control system that is scalable, reconfigurable, and fault tolerant. The design follows the automation object approach, and produces a function block component representing a single section of conveyor. In accordance with holonic principles, this component is autonomous and collaborative, such that the structure and the behavior of a BHS can be entirely defined by the interconnection of these components within the function block design environment. Simulation is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the agent-based control system and a utility is presented for real-time viewing of these systems. Tests on a physical conveyor test system demonstrated deployment to embedded control hardware.

This paper deals with refactoring of execution control charts of IEC 61499 basic function blocks as a means to improve the engineering support potential of the standard in development of industrial control applications. The main purpose of the refactoring is removal of arcs without event inputs. Extended refactoring, proposed in this paper, also helps to get rid of potential deadlock states. The ECC refactoring is implemented as a set of graph transformation rules. A prototype has been implemented using the AGG software tool. The refactoring can help in implementing equivalent transformation of control programs without introducing errors.

The IEC 61499 architecture is a new standard proposed to replace current PLC technologies. This paper aims to develop a guide to migrate from IEC 61131 PLC technologies to IEC 61499 function blocks, especially for PLC programmers. Multiple PLC platforms are chosen as examples and transformed function block system is provided. Beyond migration rules, current limitation and cautions during migration are discussed on the final section of this paper.

This paper describes an implementation of a new IEC 61499 execution environment based on the generic cyclic execution model, outlined within the draft IEC 61499 Compliance Profile for Execution models. The proposed model further adds more details to the generic cyclic model via an abstract implementation independent way.

IEC 61499 has been endorsed as the standard for modeling and implementing distributed industrial process measurement and control systems. The standard prescribes the use of function blocks for designing systems in a component-oriented approach. The execution model of a basic function block and the manner for event/data connections between blocks are described therein. Unfortunately, the standard does not provide exhaustive specifications for function block execution. Consequently, multiple standard-compliant implementations exhibiting different behaviors are possible. This not only defeats the purpose of having a standard but also makes verification of function block systems difficult. To overcome this, we propose synchronous semantics for function blocks and show its feasibility by translating function blocks into a subset of Esterel, a well-known synchronous language. The proposed semantics avoids causal cycles common in Esterel and is proved to be reactive and deterministic under any composition. Moreover, verification techniques developed for synchronous systems can now be applied to function blocks.

This paper presents a new framework for design and validation of industrial automation systems based on systematic application of formal methods. The engineering methodology proposed in this paper is based on the component design of automated manufacturing systems from intelligent mechatronic components. Foundations of such componentspsila information infrastructure are the new IEC 61499 architecture and the automation object concept. It is illustrated in this paper how these architectures, in conjunction with other advanced technologies, such as Unified Modeling Language, Simulink, and net condition/event systems, form a framework that enables pick-and-place design, simulation, formal verification, and deployment with the support of a suite of software tools. The key feature of the framework is the inherent support of formal validation techniques achieved on account of automated transformation among different system models. The paper appeals to developers of automation systems and automation software tools via showing the pathway to improve the system development practices by combining several design and validation methodologies and technologies.

This paper presents new approach to power system automation, based on distributed intelligence rather than traditional centralised control. The paper investigates the interplay between two international standards, IEC 61850 and IEC 61499, and proposes a way of combining of the application functions of IEC 61850-compliant devices with IEC 61499-compliant ldquoglue logic,rdquo using the communication services of IEC 61850-7-2. The resulting ability to customise control and automation logic will greatly enhance the flexibility and adaptability of automation systems, speeding progress toward the realisation of the smart grid concept.

This paper presents a new approach to modelling and verification of function block applications of the IEC 61499 standard. The approach uses the language of logic programming Prolog to represent a model of function block network and to verify its properties. The class of properties that can be checked is extended to more substantial queries providing in return not only "yes" or "no", but also the parameters explaining the reasons. The models essentially use the topological properties of the function block network and allow data of arbitrary types (not only Boolean) be used in the queries.

This paper presents ongoing work focused on dynamic reconfiguration of industrial automation systems as a part of their total life cycle. Modification of the control logic has to be enabled at runtime and without any disturbances of related applications. The epsivCEDAC engineering cycle for dynamic system evolution is based on the use of an IEC 61499 reconfiguration application responsible for the dynamic transformation of the program during its execution. The verification of this evolution step takes the central role in this engineering cycle. The paper discusses the general requirements for this kind of verification. Especially the capabilities of the automation system - the used hardware and software - form a major point. The paper describes the basic concepts and ongoing work regarding the verification of downtimeless system evolution.

This paper discusses systematic approaches to the design of distributed controllers in industrial automation systems. Several design approaches are compared that lead to the distributed control of manufacturing machines and their parts. In particular, a decentralized control method is introduced that does not require a master controller. The implementation frameworks of IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499 are checked on their fitness to the distributed control. A migration method from a PLC-based control to IEC 61499 is illustrated. A layered architecture for distributed controllers is introduced and tested on examples.

This paper describes formal modeling and verification of automation systems from the system engineering point of view. Reuse of model components is the key issue in order to bring the scientific modeling methodology into engineering practice. The reuse is achieved by the combination of modular modeling of automation systems with object-oriented description of models in UML style. This allows to benefit from advantages of both worlds: efficiently manage highly hierarchical complex models with UML tools and end up with efficiently executable models with distributed states that are compatible also with IEC61499 function block specifications. The approach is supported by the tool framework that is described in the contribution

This paper suggests a comprehensive engineering framework for software design for component-based distributed industrial automation based on the combination of UML with the function block concept of the newly emerging international standard IEC61499. Four UML diagram types have been used, namely: class, sequence, cooperation and state-chart diagrams. The UML design is transformed then to the executable function block specification following the IEC61499.

Open knowledge economy in intelligent industrial automation (OOONEIDA) is a new initiative for enabling decentralized, reconfigurable industrial control and automation in discrete manufacturing and continuous process systems. The goal of the OOONEIDA project is the creation of the technological infrastructure for a new, open knowledge economy for automation components and automated industrial products. This will be done by further development of the concept of reusable portable software modules (function blocks) and by their application in the time- and cost-effective specification, design, validation, realization, and deployment of intelligent mechatronic components in distributed industrial automation and control systems.

The demands of users and markets require today's manufacturing systems to be agile and flexible. Hence, the corresponding control systems need to be adaptable, reusable and re-configurable. This motivates development of the control architectures based on the concept of software components. The international standard IEC 61499 provides a function block architecture for industrial process measurement and control systems. According to this standard, a distributed control system can be structured by means of interconnection of software components. With the help of a prototype control system, this paper describes how to design a distributed control system based on the engineering methodologies of extended model/view/controller (MVC) and layered architecture MVC according to IEC 61499. The corresponding configurations for practical application are presented, including some methods to decompose the functionality of a distributed system into several components. The integration of visualization components is discussed in detail. This paper serves as an example on how to apply the IEC 61499 standard into practice.

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.

This paper reports the results of case study on application of open distributed software architecture IEC61499 to the organization of intelligence, embedded to smart mechatronic components. The presented approach targets the issues related to integration and reconfiguration of automation systems, where the software integration plays an important role. Based on the testbed studies, a classification of "intelligence classes" is suggested. Several integration and reconfiguration scenarios are illustrated.

This paper discusses the issues related to the correctness of agile manufacturing systems with distributed architectures. The corresponding development of software engineering methods targets the goal of easy-reconfigurable, self-organized software similar to that of the hardware. However, existing methods of software validation (manual testing or computer-aided simulation) are too slow to keep up with the pace of reconfigurations. In this paper we present an approach and a software tools to incorporate the formal verification to the practice of control engineering. The software package "verification environment for distributed applications" (VEDA) has been developed for model-based simulation and verification with a homogeneous graphical user interface. Net condition event systems are used for the modeling. VEDA deals with distributed controllers as defined in IEC 61499 and automatically generates the formal model of the controller with the given source code.

In a search for an appropriate visual specification language to be applied in control engineering the timing diagram specification language is suggested. It is applied to the verification of distributed controllers following the standard IEC 61499. Specification of inputs and outputs of the controller are given in the graphical form of signal diagrams. The inputs are then converted into finite-state models, while the diagram of outputs is used to build equivalent analytic expressions in extended CTL. These two parts are used in formal verification of the control system.