Title: An RTSJ-based framework for model-driven development in distributed control and automation

Authors: Kleanthis Thramboulidis

Addresses: Department of Automation and Systems Technology, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 5500, Espoo, FIN-02015 TKK, Finland

Abstract: The development process of control and automation software appears to be unsatisfactory and many years behind the general-purpose software development process. Moreover, current software engineering practices cannot be applied without modifications to the control and automation domain. In this paper, the model-driven development (MDD) paradigm is adopted to define a framework for the development of control and automation software. The proposed framework integrates an evolving domain-specific modelling language with the emerging real-time specification for Java (RTSJ) to exploit the benefits of Object and Java technologies. An implementation model framework and a run-time environment are defined to allow function block (FB) based design specifications to be automatically transformed to RTSJ executable ones. The recently released IBM RTSJ implementation is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. Performance measurements show the applicability of the proposed approach in the control and automation domain.

Keywords: RTSJ; real-time specification for Java; framework; MDD; model-driven development; industrial engineering; systems engineering; DCS; distributed control systems; real-time Java; function block models; performance measurement; automated manufacturing; mechatronics; automation software; control software.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2011.039673

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2011 Vol.7 No.4, pp.518 - 541

Published online: 31 Jan 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article