Structured design of automatic systems: Applying the GEMMA/SFC approach to a mechatronics teaching system

The project provides a graphical approach to address the structured design of sequential automation systems, implementing the GEMMA based on SFC/GRAFCET, to a teaching mechatronics device. Theoretical background is present about SFC/GRAFCET and GEMMA, two French modeling tool used in the hierarchical design project for the automated system. The methodology is based on a top-down approach in which the overall vision of how the partial SFC´s interact between them, prevails over an botton - up methodology, that traditionally concentrate the attention on a single SFC. A mechatronics machine, equipped with an electroneumatic system, HMI and GEMMA guide, was built to test the validity of the proposed model from the academic perspective and to demonstrate its potential in industrial equipment. The systematic use of the GEMMA guide in the project, as general methodology for the design of automated systems, allowed cover aspects of supervision and control of electromechanical sequential processes through a modular structure since the same stage of planning.