Service-oriented distributed control software design for process automation systems

Improving software development efficiency and reusability of existing programs is an important topic for industrial automation. Recently, modern software paradigms have been introduced into the automation domain such as object-oriented programming using the IEC 61131-3 standard and component-based design based on the IEC 61499 standard. In this paper, another software paradigm - service-oriented architecture is applied to the software design for automation programs. The proposed SOA pattern is based on a multi-layered structure with enhanced reusability and flexibility. A case study of water heating system is implemented to prove the concept of SOA paradigm.