research interests

IEC 61499 is a new standard architecture for distributed automation, measurement and control systems, also known as Function Blocks. It is seen as a successor of the popular IEC 61131-3 standard programming of PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers). IEC 61499 aims at interoperability, reusability and flexibility of distributed control systems as compared to the currently PLC controlled world.

However, the ideas of IEC 61499 are hard to use in automation industry for many reasons, such as the lack of proven industrial pilot cases, costs of technology change, and, in particular, the lack of migration strategies. As the IEC 61499 standard has not been deployed into industry in depth, some of its definitions may not be suitable for the industrial applications. In addition, the lack of application experiences makes the potential adoption risky for the entire industry. A guide or formal translation rules that can be applied to assist migration from the current IEC 61131-3 technology to IEC 61499 function block control is essential for all levels of people in the automation and control industry from management to maintenance electricians.

This research project aims to promote IEC 61499 into the current PLC world developing such a migration strategy. Typical automation design solutions will be investigated on account of re-implementing them under the distributed control methodology of IEC 61499. Benefits and problems of the migration will be investigated.

Publications

William Dai and Valeriy Vyatkin “A case study on migration from IEC 61131-3 PLC to IEC 61499 Function Block Control”, 7th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics(INDIN 2009), Cardiff, UK, July 2009.

William Dai and Valeriy Vyatkin “On Migration from PLCs to IEC 61499: Addressing the Data Handling Issues”, 8th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics(INDIN 2010), Osaka, Japan, July 2010.

current projects

Migration Rules and Auto Translating Tools – IEC 61499 Editor with IEC 61131-3 Support
This migration research is more focus on the design perspective rather than PLC program command by command translation to IEC 61499 FB format. To achieve the migration goal, weaknesses of current PLCs should be avoided in the function block control. Also, the features supported by IEC 61131-3 but not translatable directly into IEC 61499 will be examined in further research to ensure those features are covered in the new distributed system design. Finally the distributed design must be cost-effective that the new architecture is beneficial for the industry.

Efficient Data Handling in IEC 61499 – Service Oriented Architecture
 To re-design a data-processing intensive control system into a distributed system and improve the efficiency of data processing is a big challenge. As design limitation, PLCs are not suitable for large amount of real-time data processing. This research aims for using service oriented architecture as design guideline for the IEC 61499 function blocks development to meet the requirement of those heavy data load control system.

Communication between PLC and IEC 61499 controller AND OPC Support for IEC 61499
 This research aims for define a communication protocols enable communication between IEC 61499 controllers and PLCs, SCADA, HMI and PCs. Also the management commands for IEC 61499 will be revised to improve its performance in the real world.