On the suitability of modeling approaches for engineering distributed control systems

Modern complex and flexible manufacturing systems require new types of control system architectures and design methodologies. An essential new applied architectural approach is the distributed control architecture and an essential new methodology within automation is model-based engineering. There is a wide range of modeling approaches available from traditional automation, domain-oriented systems engineering, and software engineering. Unfortunately, there are very few reports on the pros and cons of these modeling approaches for the practical design tasks along the engineering process for distributed control systems (DCSs). This paper gives a first evaluation for the suitability of models for engineering DCSs to provide the researcher and practitioner with combinations of models that are well suited for their engineering projects.