An IEC-61131-based rule system for integrated automation engineering: Concept and case study

In this paper we present a rule-based system that has its purpose in automation engineering and can be implemented in a common automation environment without additional software. Our rule-based system uses IEC 61131 program organization units to formulate the rules as blueprints of the intended network of function blocks, functions or programs. Hence, the engineer can develop in his preferred programming language, but instead of writing out the implementation of each instance in full, he develops a single blueprint representation of the intended context. The paper gives an overview of the implementation requirements for this approach and reviews the advantages and problems of an integrated rule-based system. Finally, we adapt this concept to implement a rule-based version of flow path analysis in an piping system. On the base of the implemented example, we demonstrate the feasibility of the presented concept. A forecast on future fields of application finalizes the paper.