【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 tware can overe deficiencies in the traditional way of programming manufacturing control systems, and can have wide ramifications in several industrial applications. Automation control systems are modeled by formal languages or, equivalently, by state machines. Formal representations provide a highlevel description of the behavior of the system to be controlled. State machines can be analytically evaluated as to whether or not they meet the desired goals. Secondly, a state machine description provides a structured representation to convey the logical requirements and constraints such as detailed safety rules. Thirdly, welldefined control systems design outes are conducive to automatic code generation An ability to produce control software executable on mercial distinct logic controllers can reduce programming leadtime and labor cost. In particular, the thesis is relevant with respect to the following aspects. In modern manufacturing, systems are characterized by product and process innovation, bee customerdriven and thus have to respond quickly to changing system requirements. A major challenge is therefore to provide enabling technologies that can economically reconfigure automation control systems in response to changing needs and new opportunities. Design and operational knowledge can be reused in realtime, therefore, giving a significant petitive edge in industrial practice. Studies have shown that programming methodologies in automation systems have not been able to match rapid increase in use of puting resources. For instance, the programming of PLCs still relies on a conventional programming style with ladder logic diagrams. As a result, the delays and 8 resources in programming are a major stumbling stone for the progress of manufacturing industry. Testing and debugging may consume over 50% of the manpower allocated for the PLC program design. Standards [IEC 60848, 1999。 IEC611313, 1993。 IEC 61499, 1998。 ISO 157451, 1999] have been formed to fix and disseminate stateoftheart design methods, but they normally cannot participate in advancing the knowledge of efficient program and system design. A systematic approach will increase the level of design automation through reusing existing software ponents, and will provide methods to make largescale system design manageable. Likewise, it will improve software quality and reliability and will be relevant to systems high security standards, especially those having hazardous impact on the environment such as airport control, and public railroads. The software industry is regarded as a performance destructor and plexity generator. Steadily shrinking hardware prices spoils the need for software performance in terms of code optimization and efficiency. The result is that massive and less efficient software code on one hand outpaces the gains in hardware performance on the other hand. Secondly, software proliferates into plexity of unmanageable dimensions。 software redesign and maintenanceessential in modern automation systemsbees nearly impossible. Particularly, PLC programs have evolved from a couple lines of code 25 years ago to thousands of lines of code with a similar number of 1/O points. Increased safety, for instance new policies on fire protection, and the flexibility of modern automation systems add plexity to the program design process. Consequently, the lifecycle cost of software is a permanently growing fraction of the total cost. 8090% of these costs are going into software maintenance, debugging, adaptation and expansion to meet changing needs. 9 Today, the primary focus of most design research is based on mechanical or electrical products. One of the byproducts of this proposed research is to enhance our fundamental understanding of design theory and methodology by extending it to the field of engineering systems design. A system design theory for largescale and plex system is not yet fully developed. Particularly, the question of how to simplify a plicated or plex design task has not been tackled in a scientific way. Furthermore, building a bridge between design theory and the latest epistemological outes of formal representations in puter sciences and operations research, such as discrete event system modeling, can advance future development in engineering design. From a logical perspective, PLC software design is similar to the hardware design of integrated circuits. Modern VLSI designs are extremely plex with several million parts and a product development time of 3 years [Whitney, 1996]. The design process is normally separated into a ponent design and a system design stage. At ponent design stage, single functions are designed and verified. At system design stage, ponents are aggregated and the whole system behavior and functionality is tested through simulation. In general, a plete verification is impossible. Hence, a systematic approach as exemplified for the PLC program design may impact the logical hardware design. AK 1703 ACP Following the principle of our product development, AK 1703 ACP has high functionality and flexibility, through the implementation of innovative and reliable technologies, on the stable basis of a reliable product platform. For this, the system concept ACP (Automation, Control and Protection) creates the technological preconditions. Balanced functionality permits the flexible bination of automation, telecontrol and munication tasks. Complemented with the scalable performance and various redundancy 10 configurations, an optimal adaptation to the respective requirements of the process is achieved. AK 1703 ACP is thus perfectly suitable for automation with integrated telecontrol technology as: * Telecontrol substation or central device * Automation unit with autonomous functional groups