VarApp: Variant Management App for IEC 61131-3 Compliant Legacy Software

Juliane Fischer, Birgit Vogel-Heuser, Elisabet Estevez Estevez, Markus Male

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite its many drawbacks, clone & own is still frequently used for control software development in the domain of automated Production Systems (aPSs). However, this procedure leads to a high amount of so-called legacy software variants, which are usually unmanaged and, thus, difficult to maintain or reuse. To facilitate the reuse of existing software, this paper presents a model-based approach for documentation, configuration, and derivation of IEC 61131-3 compliant control software. Thereby, the required models are stored in a NoSQL database and represent the structure and the variability of the considered aPS from a functional viewpoint. A visualization of the variability in the style of a Software Product Line, which is commonly used in the informatics domain for the development of variant-rich systems, enables the user to configure a variant and the respective IEC 61131-3 compliant control software is generated automatically through model transformations. The developed concept is evaluated with a prototypically implemented web application and the control software variants of a laboratory demonstrator. Thereby, the web application supports the integration of variants from existing legacy software into the database model.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2020 IEEE Conference on Industrial Cyberphysical Systems, ICPS 2020
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages269-276
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781728163895
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Jun 2020
Event3rd IEEE Conference on Industrial Cyberphysical Systems, ICPS 2020 - Virtual, Tampere, Finland
Duration: 10 Jun 202012 Jun 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2020 IEEE Conference on Industrial Cyberphysical Systems, ICPS 2020

Conference

Conference3rd IEEE Conference on Industrial Cyberphysical Systems, ICPS 2020
Country/TerritoryFinland
CityVirtual, Tampere
Period10/06/2012/06/20

Keywords

  • IEC 61131-3
  • code configuration
  • legacy software
  • model-based development
  • planned reuse
  • software product line
  • variant management

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