AutomationML: From data exchange to system planning and simulation

The planning, testing and integration of modern automation systems is becoming more and more a bottleneck in the construction of new production facilities. This is due to the facts that plants grow in complexity and that modern automation systems are highly distributed and comprise complex components. To cope with these challenges and to guarantee short implementation times and a small number of errors for the automation systems, modern development processes are needed. Such modern processes can be reduced to four main aspects: (i) A seamless process with corresponding seamless tools, (ii) a high level of model reuse and adaptability, (iii) executable models and early tests, and (iv) a system-wide planing process of the distributed system. Therefore, the established tool landscape with its specialized tools for each discipline of engineering has difficulties to keep up with these trends. The approach presented in this paper implements a development process including the aspects (i) (iv) using the new data exchange format AutomationML. AutomationML serves as an enabling technology and has the potential to change future development processes and may trigger the development of new, better integrated tools.