Modelling through the IEC 61499 standard and simulation in simulink-stateflow of industrial distributed control systems

The adoption of modular design methodologies based on formal models and on simulation based verification methods, is nowadays a fundamental element for the development of reliable and flexible industrial control systems. In the present work a modular approach to control systems design is presented, which exploits 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. Specifically, rules are defined to represent an IEC 61499 model in Simulink/Stateflow. The main benefits of the proposed approach are the reduction of the development times and costs, and the increased reliability of the designed control system. In particular, through the adoption of a formal model based on the concepts of modularity, encapsulation and abstraction, the description of complex systems is simplified and model reuse is enhanced; the adoption of an international standard for the automation systems modeling guarantees interoperability and interchangeability; and the designed automation system correctness is verified before final implementation by means of simulations. 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.