An approach for discovering and analyzing implicit architectural designs in field level automation software

In production automation, field level control software is executed on programmable logic controllers and implemented according to the IEC 61131-3 standard. In contrast to sophisticated architectural capabilities in business software and high level programming languages, the IEC 61131 standard provides only limited support for architectural designs. Nevertheless, architectural decisions are made during implementation. Within this paper, a novel approach to discover implemented architectural designs within existing field level automation software is proposed and a framework for analyzing field level automation software, following a sophisticated viewpoint-based software engineering paradigm, is presented.