Cloud Computing is revolutionizing smart manufacturing by offering on-demand and scalable computer systems that facilitate plant data analysis and operational efficiency optimization. DevOps is a methodology, widely used for developing Cloud Computing systems, that streamlines software development by improving its integration, delivery, and deployment. Although cloud application designers within a DevOps team are assumed to have development and operational knowledge, this does not fall within the skills of experts that design analytics applications of plant data. The deployment environment is also relevant since, as such applications are often hosted in the Fog, the proliferation of application components may hinder their composition and validation. This work is aimed at embracing the Platform Engineering approach to provide a tailored toolkit that guides the design and development of OpenFog compliant applications for the experts in the Smart Manufacturing domain. The platform uses Model Driven Engineering techniques and a flow-based visual editor to allow application designers to graphically compose applications from components previously delivered by component developers, abstracting them from the underlying technologies. As a result, containerized applications, ready to be deployed and run by a container orchestrator, are obtained. The feasibility of the proposal is proved through an industrial case study.

The paradigm of the fourth industrial revolution poses the combined use of technologies that provide companies with adaptability to face uncertain market scenarios. Different institutions have presented their reference architectures to apply principles of the fourth industrial revolution in a standardized way, being the German proposal Industry 4.0 (I4.0) the most widespread. Nowadays most companies are still in the computerization and digitalization phases prior to being able to connect to I4.0. This situation highlights the need for solutions for the integration of physical assets in I4.0. However, most of the work in this area focuses on ad-hoc solutions, or at least technology-dependent ones. This article presents a multilayer approach for integrating physical assets in I4.0. The goal is to separate the different concerns related to the integration of physical assets into abstract layers. This approach allows addressing these concerns in a generic way, regardless of the type of asset and/or the technology used, as well as efficient, since it addresses each concern separately. This approach is complemented by a methodology that provides guidelines for integrating physical assets according to the multilayer approach. The applicability of the multilayer approach and the integration methodology is put to the test by integrating a roboticarm.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are devoted to be the main participants in Industry 4.0 (I4.0) solutions. In recent years, many authors have focused their efforts on making proposals for the design and implementation of CPS based on different digital technologies. However, the comparative evaluation of these I4.0 solutions is complex, since there is no uniform criterion when it comes to defining the test scenarios and the metrics to assess them. This paper presents a technology-independent CPS demonstrator for benchmarking I4.0 solutions. To that end, a set of testing scenarios, Key Performance Indicators and services were defined considering the available automation cells setup. The proposed demonstrator has been used to test an I4.0 solution based on a Multi-agent Systems (MAS) approach.

The I4.0 Component is a key concept of the Platform Industrie 4.0 initiative. The I4.0 Component is made up of an asset performing services and an Asset Administration Shell (AAS) representing the asset in the system. I4.0 Components must meet the requirements of interoperability, identification, representation, information management, integration, and asset management. Industrial agents are a suitable approach to implement I4.0 Components since they meet these requirements and provide additional features such as distributed decision-making capabilities. Nevertheless, the development of generic approaches for the integration of AASs and assets is not straightforward due to the diversity of physical assets in the factories. This paper proposes a four-layered architecture for the implementation of I4.0 Components based on industrial agents, two in the agent-based AAS and the other two in the physical asset. The division into layers enhances the separation of concerns, encapsulating the different integration aspects at different abstraction levels. This approach is complementary to the standard IEEE 2660.1-2020 on recommended practices for industrial agents, which focuses on the deployment of the interface between the agent and the physical asset. As a proof of concept, the proposed architecture will be applied for the integration of a software agent and a robot from an assembly cell, aiming to create an I4.0 Component.

The adoption of virtualization technologies in the development of software has brought advances in concepts such as flexibility and innovation in the field. The advantages introduced by these emerging solutions are widely known in Cloud Computing and Big Data systems. It should also be noted that these concepts have contributed to spreading such technologies in different contexts. Good examples of this are Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) and Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) providing the future smart factories with advanced flexibility in production. In this sense, this paper proposes a flexible container architecture for industrial control. More specifically, it is focused on multi-purpose controllers or mobile anthropomorphic robots making use of a container solution. To this end, key technologies as Docker or IEC 61499, are used to address at the same time the deployment of flexible functions and the virtualization of control, with legacy support.

Global competition has resulted in changes on product demand which have to be managed by current manufacturing systems. In this context, modularity seems to be a suitable solution to provide manufacturing systems with the flexibility required to adapt to demand fluctuations when they occur, maintaining thus competitiveness and productivity. In concrete, machine modularity allows modifying a machine structure but it should be accomplished easily and rapidly. The current work proposes a model-driven methodology that allows modular machine definition and the automatic generation of the corresponding automation project, including the machine hardware configuration and its control software. It is based on the use of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format and technologies for both model definition and code generation. The methodology has been implemented as a tool suite whose proof of concept has been developed for the particular case of the Siemens Totally Integrated Automation Portal (TIA Portal) PLC programming tool.

Product oriented manufacturing is aligned with one of the Industry 4.0 trends consisting of integrating all production systems. This implies shifting from a traditional view of manufacturing processes focused on production line in order to reduce costs, to a more flexible and customized product manufacturing. On the other hand, Multi Agent Systems (MAS) have been proved to be a suitable way to fulfill these requirements. However, a key aspect of the use of novel technologies is to offer methodologies and tools for supporting the implementation of such systems. In this sense, this paper uses Model Driven Engineering and MAS technology to propose an architecture that is able to launch and execute a manufacturing execution plan. It focuses on the information models managed by architecture agents that can be customized to particular manufacturing plants as well as on the definition of agent templates.

The growing complexity of industrial automation demands the adoption of software engineering principles for improving the development process of control systems. This paper presents a methodological approach to the design and development of complex automation systems relying on model-driven engineering (MDE). A benefit of this approach is the integration of methods and techniques widespread within the automation discipline with modern MDE techniques guiding the designer through the development phases. A second advantage is to add flexibility enough to adapt the steps to the needs of the system under design. Finally, the architecture presented is prepared to be adapted to methodology extensions to cover other aspects of automation systems. The framework is based on domain models that are defined through the development phases using the terminology of the automation field. Using model transformations both documentation about system analysis and design and the skeleton of software units are automatically generated. A proof-of-concept tool has been developed that has been tested on the design of medium-complexity projects to assess the impact of its use with respect to project documentation and maintenance.

Nowadays, the constantly changing market demands make modern automation systems offer more strict flexibility and efficiency requirements as energy efficiency, performance optimization and tolerance to process or controllers faults… The introduction of reconfiguration mechanisms within production automation systems allow meeting some of these requirements but, at the same time, they lead more complex design and implementation of the automation system. This paper explores the advantages of Model Driven Engineering techniques to manage such complexity. The proposed approach is based on two well spread standards in the automation field: AutomationML and IEC 61131-3 which have a Markup Language notation (AML and PLCopen XML respectively).

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

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

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

The continuous changes on the market and customer demands have forced modern automation systems to provide more strict Quality of Service (QoS) requirements such as load balance or full availability of the control system, among other characteristics. In order to cope with these demanding requirements, modern automation systems have started to incorporate novel design approaches which include reconfiguration mechanisms. Following this trend, this paper presents the use of MDE techniques and technologies, to help in the definition of the control system of reconfigurable automation plants. Directly from the model-based design, a model-based tool is derived that provides support for the generation of the elements that compose the reconfigurable control system.

Current Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) must cope with complex requirements that involve diverse hardware and software platforms, communication networks and middleware, legacy systems integration, programming languages, or tools and methodologies. Thus, one of the most challenging aspects in such systems is heterogeneity. On the other hand, such systems often integrate resource constrained embedded systems, and therefore they must optimize the available resources to meet specific constraints in terms of e.g. CPU usage or energy consumption. In this context, SCA (Service Component Architecture) arises as a promising technology to deal with heterogeneity, as far as it provides a broad range of features that make it suitable for integrating heterogeneous software components in a distributed application. Nevertheless, it does not provide specific support for distributed resource management. This paper presents a component platform that provides basic resource management and provisioning for SCA based distributed applications, using well known real time mechanisms provided by the operating system underneath.

Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE) is being increasingly applied in the distributed embedded systems (DES) domain as long as these systems are getting more and more complex in terms of flexibility, dynamism or heterogeneity. Besides that, safety critical systems must cope with the fulfillment of safety requirements and certification standards. This factor increases considerably the development cost of safety distributed embedded systems, even more if they must cope with flexibility, dynamism and heterogeneity. This paper focuses on the distribution aspects of such systems, and more specifically on safe communication channels for safety critical distributed systems. The proposed approach describes a certifiable general purpose safety communication layer that could be reused in different systems, thereby reducing the cost of system development and certification.

Nowadays, complex dynamic systems, such as robotics, demand new and highly sophisticated software developments. But, basically, robotics arm applications need to get information, through sensors, from the variant and unknown environment, this is available to controllers which also have information about the robot's state (position, velocity, acceleration, torque, etcetera) and taking into account a reference, they generate the next state for the robot. Therefore, every robotic platform should require a set of sensors to take information from the environment, controllers and robots (with the low level controller). In order to cope with devices, which part of them exhibit vendor-dependent characteristics, a standard interface is proposed to allow the designers to abstract the vendor specific drivers' knowledge and to guide them in this work. This paper also explores the advantages of model-based techniques to design robotic-arm applications. In particular the Unified Modelling Language has been used for modelling the functionality in the robotic's manipulator applications, from where components of the OROCOS (Open RObot COntrol Software) are automatically generated. The proposition, characterized by its openness, productivity, portability and interoperability, is based on the construction of a complex robotic manipulator platform that integrates a Staubli industrial robot and a MEKA anthropomorphic robotic arm. Both can be used, in an easy way, in advanced experiments as it is shown in the results.

Web-based laboratories have been used as valuable resources to support teaching for many years. The methodology and operation of laboratories over the Internet have changed considerably since the early implementations. In fact, one of the last steps taken related to this issue has been the integration of laboratories and Learning Management Systems (LMS). In this paper we present methods that facilitate the development of virtual and/or remote labs software to interact with Learning Management Systems using Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), the most important standard for e-learning content. A virtual lab model is developed to show how the methods are used in order to integrate the virtual lab software with the LMS via SCORM.

This paper describes a methodology for the design and implementation of supervisors for switched-mode systems, which is a typical class of hybrid systems in industrial process applications. Many works can be found in the literature addressing formal modeling and control techniques for switched-mode systems, but they commonly deal with control design and simulation. The focus of this paper is to automate the design of supervisors for industrial switched-mode processes composed by multirate loops, in order to automatically generate the code of the supervisor. Its function is to detect changes in the process operation mode and to switch to the control algorithm accordingly. The target control equipment is the programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and, thus, the software architecture generated follows the IEC 61131-3 standard. The tool developed captures information related to the overall control system (inputs and outputs and control algorithms), as well as to the discrete dynamic of the switched-mode process from the simulation model and automatically generates the supervisor code as well as a time-driven schedule for every supervisor's mode. The improvement of the overall system performance using the switched-mode supervisor is analyzed experimentally through a performance index.

The increasing complexity in current distributed embedded systems (DES) makes its design a hard task that involves several aspects like distribution middleware selection, QoS support, implementation language selection, application dynamic reconfiguration or application deployment and maintenance. These design considerations must provide a solution to non functional requirements that distributed applications nowadays demand (e.g. Hardware heterogeneity, real time requirements, energy constraints, security, safety or fault tolerance). This paper proposes a management platform for distributed component based applications that follow the SCA (Service Component Architecture) standard. This platform provides several functionalities that range from application deployment and life cycle control to QoS and fault tolerance support.

Currently, new methodological approaches using model based engineering principles are necessary for developing automation control systems. This work presents a tool that provides support for the analysis and design phases in order to generate the functional model which is the starting point for the model based development. The tool combines the use of GEMMA (Guide d'Étude des Modes de Marches et d'Arrêts), use cases and GRAFCET (GRAphe Fonctionnel de Commande, Etapes, Transitions). GEMMA is a guide to address the systematically search for all states in which an automated process can evolve and so, it is used to identify the operation modes. Use cases are used to discover the actors that take part in each operation mode, while a set of GRAFCET templates assists in the design of the use cases.

Switched mode systems are defined as those represented by a finite set of linear subsystems and a set of logic rules orchestrating the switching among them. Current Programmable Logic Controller (PLCs) and the IEC 61131-3 standard allows a systematic design of multi-controller architecture to improve the behavior of such type of industrial systems. This paper describes the implementation of Bumpless Transfer (BT) mechanisms within multi-rate control architecture for switched mode systems. By detecting the system state and the feasible next states, the supervisor decides the control algorithms that are active, in tracking mode or in wait state. The steps to design the complete architecture are presented and experimental results that validate the architecture are shown.

Current industrial applications demand the design of more and more complex, safe and trustworthy control systems exhibiting a high degree of flexibility and reutilization. To achieve this, the engineering process should be improved by making the engineering tools involved in the development process to collaborate during the design. This paper presents a model-based approach for designing complex automation applications. The core of the approach is constituted by a set of domain specific models that depend on the application field and whose elements, syntax and semantics are defined from the point of view of the experts that participate in the design of the system. The domain models are defined using engineering tools as the design progresses and they can be used to achieve tool integration through model collaboration. This can be achieved following the Model Driven Engineering approach by means of model transformations. This paper specifically focuses on the first step of this paradigm: the definition of domain languages, in this case for industrial control systems, as well as validation mechanisms of application designs coming from different domain tools. Three well known and widely used industrial standards have been used: Computer Aided Engineering eXchange (CAEX), PLCopen (a representation format for the IEC 61131-3 standard) and MathML (a language for defining mathematical constraints). Using model checking it is possible to assure the correctness of the control system specification and using model transformation it is possible to detect design errors in early stages of the design.

Industrialized societies are increasingly dependent on distributed real time systems (DRTS) that are getting more and more complex, dynamic, open, while interacting with a progressively more demanding and heterogeneous environment. In such an scenario, middleware technologies that provide real-time or QoS support are gaining importance, as they ease the development and deployment of complex distributed applications in heterogeneous networks while ensuring certain time and QoS constraints. In this sense, distribution middleware technologies like Data Distribution Service (DDS) have emerged, adding extensive QoS support to traditional middleware advantages. This paper proposes an additional middleware layer on top of DDS, based on components, that provides an easy way to deploy, configure and manage component based distributed applications, considering fault tolerance aspects.

Service Oriented architectures are becoming very popular to meet the requirements of complex current applications demanding distribution and heterogeneity in open environments. In this sense, the iLAND-ARTEMIS project is aimed at the development of a service-based middleware framework capable of supporting deterministic dynamic functional composition and reconfiguration of networked embedded service oriented applications. The approach proposed in this paper uses Model Driven Engineering (MDE) in order to guide the development of the iLAND applications from the specification to the execution through code generation, focusing on reconfiguration behavior at run-time, and assuring that non-functional requirements are met by an adequate resource assignment.

Current complex industrial automation applications demand distribution, flexibility as well as adaptability to changes. On the other hand, the IEC 61499 standard specifically addresses this type of applications. It supports the definition of multidisciplinary views to independently define the functionality of the system from the hardware architecture. Notwithstanding this, although it was specifically defined to support the design of distributed automation applications, it is not being consolidated in industry as it expected. Among others, one of the reasons that can explain this situation is the lack of design methodologies and powerful tools oriented to designers. Using the available frameworks that support this standard, it is necessary to manually introduce the ad-hoc Service Interface Function Block (SIFB) as well as their link to the application Function Blocks (FB). This paper addresses this issue and it proposes a methodology to automatically generate distributed automation applications from the functional and architecture views, i.e. using the appropriated SIFBs from a SIFB repository of templates.

Current manufacturing applications demand the design of more and more complex, safe and trustworthy control systems which exhibit a high degree of flexibility and reutilization. The present work deals with the use of Web Services and databases to support the design and development of manufacturing systems, with special emphasis on incorporating reuse. This approach has been proposed in the context of a EDI_RECON project aimed to generate a development environment for industrial control systems that support the development cycle of distributed, complex and reconfigurable applications. The validation of such an IDE will be performed on a manufacturing cell.

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

As fast as industry reaches a greater maturity level and applications become more complex, a consolidation of the modeling methodologies becomes necessary. They are composed by a lot of heterogeneous systems that need working together to perform automation and control tasks. AutomationML framework's goal is to interconnect the heterogeneous tools used in the different engineering disciplines. In concrete it manages three well accepted standards: CAEX for topology, COLLADA for kinematics and geometry, and PLCopen for logic data. This paper is focused in the logic data. A logic CPF framework is defined in order to integrate tools into AutomationML framework that fulfill the logic data present in different development phases of the applications.

Within the engineering of manufacturing systems an important change took place. The prior sequential and strongly disconnected engineering activities of the different stakeholders involved in this process became interlinked and strongly coupled leading to engineering networks. To properly work within such engineering networks lossless, consistent, and scalable data exchange structures and formats are essential for the success. Within this paper the applicability of the AutomationML by the different stakeholders of the engineering process is addressed. It is shown how this exchange format can be applied within one engineering network and which of the required engineering data are currently covered by the format.

Model-centric development is one of the hottest topics discussed in the software engineering field today. Combination of Model Driven Development and Model Driven Architecture can be extremely powerful for supporting the development cycle of the application. The use of these software methodologies within the Industrial Automation field allows meeting the requirement of current automation applications, such as flexibility, reuse, optimization and time and cost reduction. This paper focuses on the validation phase of a previously proposed Model-based Integrated Development Environment for Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS). In particular, the validation tests for the industrial control system being designed are automatically generated from the application model. The tests are executed by the control co-simulation tool that closes the loop between the control model, running in the PLC environment, and the process model running in a simulation environment.

Current complex automation applications demand reuse, integration and flexibility at the different stages of the application design. Standardization is a key to achieve these goals. The international standardization efforts have led to the definition of the IEC 61131 standard. Part 3 of this standard defines a software model for defining automation projects as well as 5 programming languages. Nowadays, a major part of programmable logic controllers (PLC) vendors follows this standard, although each programming tool adds particularities and stores the automation project in different manner. This work presents an approach for analyzing the compliance with the IEC 61131-3 standard of a programming tool. The conformity analysis is designed at different levels, and it is performed in three main steps: the software architecture, data types and programming languages. Furthermore, within each level of conformance, different sublevels can be certified.

The need for flexibility in manufacturing systems is continuously growing. This need deals with the establishment of design methodologies for implementing distributed applications. The IEC61499 define a generic architecture for designing distributed applications, based on Functions Block (FB) networks. The interface between the control software and the hardware is achieved by means of the so called Service Interface FB. But guidelines to implement this type of FBs are provided neither by the standard nor by the available tools. On the other hand, one of the most widely used industrial communication standard is OPC that enables the exchange of data between multi-vendor devices and control applications without any proprietary restrictions. Thus, an easy integration of this communication standard within IEC61499 applications may contribute to consolidate such standard. This paper presents the guidelines to use OPC in industrial applications through the definition an implementation of SIFBs to access process data using OPC-DA (OPC Data Access) specification.

Schedulability of distributed real-time applications has been an intensive research topic in the last years as embedded devices have become more and more powerful in terms of computing power, memory and communication resources. Many solutions have been proposed, yet no one has achieved sufficient relevance. This paper describes a novel framework for distributed real-time embedded systems scheduling inspired in modern operating system schedulers and multi-CPU systems. Moreover, the proposed architecture enables optimization and provides flexibility, good scalability and adaptability.

Automation applications consists of software projects that are developed using specific standard programming languages, such as the IEC 61131-3 standard that provides 5 programming languages, two textual and three graphical. They are also executed on specific hardware platforms, mainly Programmable Logic Controllers. Thus, they can be viewed as special type of software projects. As such, their design must follow the different phases of the life cycle process: development, exploitation and maintenance. This is even more important and necessary in the case of current complex automation applications. There are different international standards that define the information that must document all the phases of the life cycle. This paper deals with the automatic generation of the documentation of some of the phases or at least, the automatic generation of templates to be filled by the designers. The proposal is based on the Model based Engineering paradigm, in which the application is defined by domain specific models that are being transformed along the development phases until the application code is obtained.

Current industrial applications demand the design of more and more complex, safe and trustworthy control systems which exhibit a high degree of flexibility and reutilization. To achieve this, the engineering process has to be improved through the integration of the tools involved in the development process. To achieve this goal the definition of Markup Languages for factory automation has been proposed at different layers of the engineering process. They allow defining the application from different points of view. Each point of view uses a particular syntax and semantics. Applications are defined by means of a set of view models as well as their relationships. This paper proposes a further step as the mechanisms needed for exchanging information among models are analyzed. They are used in the design of a model collaboration prototype for distributed industrial control systems.

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

Industrial process measurement and control systems (IPMCS) are used in most of the industrial sectors to achieve production improvement, process optimization and time and cost reduction. Integration, reuse, flexibility and optimization are demanded to adapt to a rapidly changing and competitive market. The standardization of high level programming languages for programmable logic controller (PLCs) allows implementing more advanced control strategies in PLC based control applications. In this paper, antiwindup (AW) and bumpless transfer (BT) mechanisms for PID control have been selected to be implemented as reusable functional block (FB) program organization unit (POU). In particular, the final objective of the work is to design a mode switching supervisor for hybrid control systems.