MODULAR AUTOMATION SYSTEMS DESIGN USING THE IEC 61499 STANDARD AND THE SIMULINK/STATEFLOW TOOLBOXES

To reduce the development times and costs of reliable and flexible industrial automation systems innovative methodologies for the structured design and testing are mandatory. In the present work a modular approach to control systems design is presented, which integrates the formal reference model proposed by the IEC 61499 international standard and the Matlab toolboxes Simulink and Stateflow in order to simulate such a model. Through the adoption of a formal model that exploits the concepts of modularity, encapsulation and abstraction, the description of complex systems is simplified and model reuse is enhanced. Furthermore, by means of simulations the designed automation system correctness is verified before final implementation, so reducing the testing time and improving reliability. In the paper an application example is also presented, where the modular design and testing of the automation system of a manufacturing cell for a furniture factory is discussed.