A modular and hierarchical meta-model for the control design of manufacturing systems

The paper presents a new meta-model to design control functions for manufacturing systems with a high-level view of the problem. In order to reduce the control design complexity a modular and hierarchical architecture has been introduced. The aim is to obtain the control functions models for an industrial plant starting from a set of control models which can be aggregated and reused. Each control module models the state of a particular subsystem, its diagnostics functionalities and the functions it can provide to other modules. The final generated control model is then implemented in XML and coded in one of the existing PLC languages using an automatic code generator. In particular at the end of the paper a ladder diagram and sequential functional chart code generator is presented.