Autonomous Application Recovery in Distributed Intelligent Automation and Control Systems

Abstract

Over the past decade, a clear trend toward distributed automation in industrial systems was observable. This means that applications are executed at heterogeneous control devices and communication networks. One of the main drivers of this development was the availability of cheap computing and communication resources. Moreover, a strong market demand for operation and adaptation of automation and control services with no downtime is also often requested. As a result, appropriate approaches recovering and (re)configuring automation and control devices as well as even their services and functions during full operation are needed. The relatively new standard IEC 61499 "Function Blocks" provides a reference model for the development and implementation of distributed industrial process measurement and control systems (IPMCSs). It provides a scalable and open architecture to model distributed automation and control applications. The high-level goals of IEC 61499 can be summarized as interoperability, (re)configurability, and portability of distributed applications for IPMCS. Therefore, it provides a very good basis for dynamic (re)configuration and recovery of applications and status information in heterogeneous IPMCS and may master some of the shortcomings of present-day systems. The main purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a general concept for autonomous recovery of applications within the context of distributed automation and control systems which has been implemented using the IEC 61499 reference model. Index Terms-Automatic application recovery, distributed intelligent automation, holonic manufacturing system (HMS), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61499, industrial process measurement and control systems (IPMCSs), lower level control (LLC), (re)configuration.

Agent-based middleware architecture for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

“…In [23,13], FBs are duplicated in different controllers. One of the controllers acts as a master being in charge of monitoring controller and/or network failures, respectively, deciding when a duplicated FB must be activated from the last execution state.…”

Bridging Service-Oriented Architecture and IEC 61499 for Flexibility and Interoperability

“…A general concept of autonomous application recovery in distributed intelligent automation and control systems is presented by Strasser et al [5], [17]. The reconfigurability provided by the IEC 61499 standard is used as the basis for dynamic reconfiguration and recovery.…”

“…In contrast, the absence of global variables in IEC 61499 simplifies reallocation of IEC 61499 function blocks to other devices in distributed automation systems, while the mapping of function block instances (FBIs) to devices is required only at the last stage prior to deployment. Finally, a management model is introduced in the standard to facilitate reconfigurability at runtime [5]. The management model consists of a distribution model, communication interfaces between devices, a set of commands, and suggested protocols.…”

“…Approaches to more intelligent actions, such as automatic deployment [13] and automatic fault recovery [5], have been proposed and demonstrated, but are not yet standardized, while other advanced capabilities such as automatic load sharing between controllers are yet to be implemented.…”

Migration From PLC to IEC 61499 Using Semantic Web Technologies

“…Majority of the systems are still designed using programmable logic controllers (PLC) programmed in traditional languages of ladder logic, structured text or function block diagram (FBD) defined in IEC 61131-3 standard [3]. Potential benefits of implementing complex automation systems with IEC 61499 technology include lower design effort combined with higher flexibility, reconfigurability and maintainability [4][5][6][7], but the learning curve is quite steep and the cost of required initial research and development is high. Therefore it is important to provide an easy migration path for existing PLC programs into IEC 61499 compliant platforms as the first step towards widespread adoption of the new standard.…”