Generating extended state transitions from structured specifications for process control systems

Author

Kuhn, D. Richard

Author_Institution

Nat. Inst. of Stand. & Technol., Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Volume

4

Issue

5

fYear

1989

fDate

9/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

283

Lastpage

291

Abstract

The paper describes a method for providing improved prototyping capabilities in a process control system emulation tool. The tool, the NIST Hierarchical Control System Emulator, allows concurrent execution of modules emulating both physical processes and decision processes. The concurrent modules are specified as extended finite state machines. The paper describes the emulation tool and presents a simple method for transforming code, written with structured control constructs, into an extended state machine representation usable on the Emulator, providing the capability of rapid prototyping of designs. The paper also discusses advantages and disadvantages of this approach against direct use of state tables for specifying processes on the Emulator

Keywords

digital simulation; finite automata; formal specification; process computer control; software tools; Hierarchical Control System Emulator; NIST; decision processes; emulation tool; extended finite state machines; extended state transitions; physical processes; process control systems; prototyping; state tables; structured specifications;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering Journal

Publisher

iet

ISSN

0268-6961

Type

jour

Filename

42961