research interests
- Cyber Physical System concepts applied to the field of Industrial Automation
- Distributed Intelligent Baggage Handling Systems Control implemented using IEC 61499 Function Blocks
- Investigation of the usage of the commercial IEC 61499 Development environment ISaGRAF compared to solutions such as Function Block Development Kit (FBDK)
Distributed Intelligent Baggage Handling Systems Control using ISaGRAF version of IEC 61499 Function Blocks
With new flexibility and reliability requirements by clients, there is an ever growing need for faster design. Current Baggage Handling System (BHS) programming techniques are not up to the task. A BHS design solution based on IEC 61499 Function Blocks is proposed in this project.
Layout Driven Software Design
For a system with a high level of physical distribution, generating the software from a description of the hardware topology provides potential benefits for rapid design. Using IEC 61499 Function Blocks, a conveyor Function Block can be mapped to each physical conveyor in the system.
Simulation on ISaGRAF Hardware
ISaGRAF demo-kits were used for simulation of the distributed BHS. Each conveyor function block was mapped to a single hardware controller resulting in a 1-to-1 mapping of functionality to hardware. Controllers consist of a Freescale coldfire CPU providing 60 MIPS with the communications platform being Ethernet.
Custom OPC Client and BHS Visualisation
The OPC standard was used for communication and a custom OPC was written to subscribe to each distributed controller programatically. The simulated system was then rendered in real time on a local computer using a custom written visualisation application.
