Volume 61, Issue 6 -

The increasing complexity in the development of open loop control software demands new comprehensive methods and an approach for automated testing to ensure a requested level of quality at high efficiency. In this article a model based approach for test case generation using UML sequence diagrams and a universal test system architecture are presented. For the generation of executable test cases out of a model, a semantic adaption of UML sequence diagrams to the cyclic execution logic is presented. An example is used to demonstrate the simplicity of creation, execution and reporting of test cases using the presented approach.

Wireless automation systems are gaining momentum as they promise an easy installation, extension and mobile integration. But, wireless systems also add new problems. Wireless devices have limited energy resources and the wireless propagation is erroneus particularly in automation systems. This needs to be considered already during the system design to avoid time consuming trial-and-error set-ups. This paper introduces a holistic design approach that addresses these common issues in wireless building automation system design. It takes up novel design concepts and tools from wired system design and combines them in a holistic tool environment that supports the engineer in his common work flow to efficiently design reliable wireless building automation systems.

While by now wireless communication is an inherent part of industrial automation and a lot of automation applications use radio communication, they are not fully integrated into the life cycle of automation systems. Beside the selection, planning and diagnostic of radio solutions the user is left alone at the management of coexistence. Simulations could be helpful in supporting the user by optimising relevant radio parameters. This article will show the problems and give an convenient approach.

Functional complexity of field devices is increasing constantly. Therefore, the expenses for development, implementation and test of devices are growing. The concept of Rapid Prototyping has been developed to enhance development processes. This article describes an approach to rapidly realize a large number of field device prototypes or system application prototypes by the means of software prototypes and virtualization.The support for the device development based on application profiles is emphasized.The methodologies are illustrated using an example implementing a PROFINET IO application profile.

In engineering data interpretation is affected by subjective knowledge and experience. So methods for storing data semantic and their evolution process are needed. Besides machine readable description of data semantic by means of formal ontologies usage of data dictionaries provides major benefits. Hereby structure of data, their properties and meaning are described. Criterions of universality and longtime stability are critical for defining their content. For this sake the concept of master data is proposed in this paper. Also process related information gathering is addressed.

Modeling is increasingly used in the development of industrial automation systems. Efficiency in development can be improved, if the models are used systematically. In this article, we present a concept for model-driven development of industrial automation systems allowing for a systematic use of models and thus increases efficiency in development.