Semantic domain models are becoming an essential component of software-intensive Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPSs). They support the implementation of innovative concepts like Digital Twins (DTs), that enable autonomous operations of an entire production environment. However, developing domain models for CPPS is a challenging endeavour, especially due to a lack of standardised modelling approaches within the manufacturing domain. In this paper, we have tried to reduce this existing research gap by proposing a conceptual modelling approach that allows developing generic domain models of a production environment. The focus of this research work is to define generic modelling constructs that can be employed to capture domain concepts in a technology- or standard-neutral manner and used by various software engineering disciplines to develop diverse use case-specific CPPS applications.

Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPSs) have emerged as a cutting-edge manufacturing paradigm that aims to utilise innovative technological concepts like the Digital Twin and Artificial Intelligence to upgrade and optimise the productivity level of manufacturing environments. These concepts typically thrive on data and could be challenging to implement due to the semantic heterogeneity induced by the diverse manufacturing resources. Information modelling is a well-established approach traditionally used in software engineering to address semantic heterogeneity. Although the relevance of information modelling has already been established in CPPS, a suitable framework for information model development is not yet available. Therefore, our goal is to address this issue by proposing a domain-specific semantic information modelling framework for CPPS that enables the seamless integration of diverse manufacturing resources into intelligent business applications.

Modern industrial automation applications require a flexible and modular software architecture that can be easily adapted to meet dynamic market requirements. The IEC 61499-based programming model, due to its distributed and modular nature, could be a potential tool in this regard. In our previous works, we proposed the concept of a PLC-Service bus, a service-oriented architecture-based control application development paradigm for the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). We have also demonstrated its applicability using the IEC 61499 modelling language. In this paper, we propose an OPC UA-based configuration approach for software components of the PLC-Service bus.

The IEC 61499-based distributed control model is gradually gaining popularity among the stakeholders involved in the field of cyber-physical production systems. Integration of IEC 61499 with the Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) will ease the effort required for horizontal as well as vertical integration of distributed control applications. In our previous work, we mapped the function block model and the application model of the IEC 61499 standard to OPC UA. This work-in-progress paper is intended to be an extension of our previous work that demonstrates the mapping of the resource, device, and the system model to OPC UA.

Software has become an integral part of production automation systems and it is going to play a key role in the realization of Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPSs), a software-defined futuristic smart production environment. However, the emergence of CPPS has led to the development of a new genre of software tools that aims to bridge the gap between the machine world and the software domain. Examples of such tools are Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) based software applications that are seen as potential enablers for CPPS. Building OPC UA server applications for CPPS could pose multiple challenges which could be addressed using established software development approaches. In this paper, we investigated the well-known Domain-Driven Design (DDD) based software development concept and its applicability regarding the development of an OPC UA server application for CPPS.

The introduction of emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cloud computing have radically evolved the software architecture of the industrial automation domain. Future automation and control software systems require a flexible and open architecture. The IEC 61499 standard-based programming paradigm, due to its flexible and modular structure, is considered a potential tool for developing future automation systems. Therefore, integrating IEC 61499 standard with the Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) could be beneficial as it will increase the applicability of the standard. However, no formal mapping between the IEC 61499 models and the OPC UA information model is defined by the OPC Foundation for now. Therefore, in this paper, a conceptual mapping between the models of these two standards is provided. The goal of this work is to develop an OPC UA companion specification for the IEC 61499.

To address current challenges of production systems such as increased number of product variants, batch size one, and shorter product life cycle, they need to be modular, loosely coupled, and more adaptable than ever. A PLC-Service bus architecture has been proposed to improve the modularity and adaptability of a PLC-software. The architecture enables software components of PLC-software to interact via middleware in a loosely coupled manner. Previous work identified a catalog of message integration patterns for PLC-software, and IEC 61499 was proposed to implement the architecture. The current version of the IEC 61499 standard does not fully support all message integration patterns from the catalog.Therefore, this paper first identifies suitable middleware technologies for IEC 61499 and, later, based on the requirements of the PLC-Service bus architecture, evaluates them to propose the suitable middleware technologies.

Real-time behaviour is one of the most important aspects of field level automation networks in factory communication. Various Real-Time Ethernet (RTE) technologies have been developed over the years to cope with the network requirements like latency, Quality-of-Service (QoS), reliability etc. of the field level networks. Because of their nature of vendor-dependency, these technologies have been incompatible with one another. In the era of Industry 4.0, an innovative approach is required to bring together this technology in order to solve the interoperability issue. Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a vendor-neutral communication protocol which can be an answer to this incompatibility problem of field level factory networks. This paper aims to use OPC UA as a field level communication protocol in combination with the Time-sensitive networking (TSN) standards to simulate the real-time behaviour of field network.

The advent of Industry 4.0 brings the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) inside the factory premise and made the boundaries between the information and operational technologies (IT & OT) obsolete. This, in turn, introduces the problem of interoperability due to the integration of multiple industrial protocols and technologies from various automation networks. The aim of this paper is to investigate this interoperability problem of heterogeneous network management and propose a semantic network knowledge base as a solution to it. It also describes a set of generic interface functions for data acquisition.

Driven by rapid digitalisation, production systems are becoming more flexible and adaptable with the help of emerging concepts like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. Often, these transformations are not fully implemented in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) due to the replacement cost of existing machines. This paper aims to develop a Plug & Play retrofitting platform, where Industry 4.0 compliant sensor systems can be attached, detected, and configured automatically to the existing production environment. The purpose of the retrofitting is to integrate the sensor system with a cloud platform that would provide persistent storage for sensor data as well as the functionalities to perform monitoring, analysis, and predictive learning.

The prevalence of the term “Network Slicing” in today's communication network research community signifies the concept worthy of focus. However, despite its ubiquitous usage, there are varied interpretations of the concept which often leads to disagreement and confusion. The root of this misunderstanding lies in what the term “Slicing” means to the user and the context of its application. Network slicing has been considered as a key concept in 5G which will enable various types of services like enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra Low Latency Reliable Communication (URLLC) and massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC) for industries. Despite all the standardization efforts, less progress has happened in the field to demystify the concept due to the misinterpretation of the term by various parties. As a result, this paper aims to provide an industrial perspective on the concept of Slicing and its usage in industrial communication networks. It shall as well propose contextualized taxonomy of the areas of usage as a way of reducing the vagueness surrounding the concept. Thus, within this context, an objective rather than subjective comprehension can ensue in intellectual discussions.

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) has revolutionized the industrial sectors around the world. Industry 4.0, a digitalization endeavour by the government of Germany for the factories of the future, aims to create intelligent, self-organized, and self-optimized smart factories by combining the IoT, cloud computing and artificial intelligence together. Interoperability is one of the crucial aspects of Industry 4.0 which requires standardized information models and exchange mechanisms for heterogeneous platform integration. Despite the development of various industry standards, this still remains the biggest burden due to multiple protocols, technologies, and policies involved. A common understanding of data semantics can be helpful in mitigating such problem. This paper provides a detailed comparison between the modelling approaches of Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and Resource Description Framework (RDF) and its extension languages. The aim is to garner a common understanding between these two modelling frameworks in order to generate a standardized mapping between them for the purpose of interoperable industrial applications.