Automated code generation for programmable logic controllers based on knowledge acquisition from engineering artifacts: Concept and case study

The effort for design and implementation of process automation systems increases with the complexity of modern production plants. To shorten the implementation phase we propose a conceptual approach for automated code generation for programmable logic controllers (PLCs) based on knowledge acquisition from standardized engineering artifacts and their corresponding tool database. Ontologies are defined for each engineering domain artifact, representing the concepts and relations specified in the associated domain standards. An automated data extraction and population of the domain-specific ontologies together with semi-automated mapping definitions between common engineering objects then enables a rule-based code generator to query the ontologies. The query results are translated afterward into PLC code by applying a rule transformation algorithm.