Standardized Dynamic Reconfiguration of Control Applications in Industrial Systems

Industrial areas like manufacturing, logistics and power systems require highly flexible and adaptable control solutions in order to fulfill future requirements. An industrial automation system has to provide technologies, concepts and mechanisms allowing the adaption of control logic during operation. Proper engineering approaches as well as execution environments with dynamic reconfiguration capabilities are needed to turn this vision into reality. This article provides an overview of applying the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed automation as basis for a standard-compliant reconfigurable method in industrial environments. It covers the modeling and engineering of reconfiguration applications and their execution on distributed embedded controllers using IEC 61499. This approach significantly increases engineering efficiency and reuse in component-based design of industrial automation and control applications. A special focus of this contribution is the discussion of implemented industrial use cases from the manufacturing, robotics and power systems domain.