Methodology and tools for implementing IEC 61131–3 compliance tests

Current complex automation applications demand reuse, integration and flexibility at the different stages of the application design. Standardization is a key to achieve these goals. The international standardization efforts have led to the definition of the IEC 61131 standard. Part 3 of this standard defines a software model for defining automation projects as well as 5 programming languages. Nowadays, a major part of programmable logic controllers (PLC) vendors follows this standard, although each programming tool adds particularities and stores the automation project in different manner. This work presents an approach for analyzing the compliance with the IEC 61131-3 standard of a programming tool. The conformity analysis is designed at different levels, and it is performed in three main steps: the software architecture, data types and programming languages. Furthermore, within each level of conformance, different sublevels can be certified.