Motivation / Background

The domain of automation industry is characterised by a highly proprietary environment. Different platforms and different tools are in use. In most cases there is no interoperability between different solutions of different vendors. The standard IEC 61131-3 provides a very small basis for common modelling of control programs, but platforms and tools are not able to interoperate. Several steps to improve this situation have been undertaken by the PLCopen. The new standard IEC 61499 has even more ambitious objectives. These can be described by the three issues portability, configurability, and interoperability:

• Portability: the ability of software tools to accept and correctly interpret library elements produced by other software tools.

• Configurability: the ability of devices and their software components to be configured (selected, assigned locations, interconnected and parameterized) by multiple software tools.

• Interoperability: the ability of devices from different vendors operating together to perform the functions specified by one or more distributed applications.

A look at the current status of the developments in the domain of IEC 61499 shows, that these targets may be failed. As a conclusion a common and public available basis is needed to overcome these problems.

Mission

The general aim of the 4DIAC initiative is to provide an open, IEC 61499 standard compliant basis, that gives the opportunity to establish an automation and control environment based on the targets portability, configurability and interoperability. 

Objectives

4DIAC pursues the following main objectives:

• Provision of a common basis for development, industrial appliance and research of IEC 61499,

• Provision of a package containing a runtime environment for different embedded control platforms as well as the corresponding engineering environment,

• Provision of real-world examples at prototype level to increase the acceptance of IEC 61499 in industry,

• Providing an incentive for the use of IEC 61499 within industry and

• Stimulation of the cooperation between research institutes and industry.