Towards autoconfiguration of industrial automation systems: A case study using Profinet IO

Nowadays the deployment and commissioning of complex production processes or Internet-enabled applications interacting with production systems requires a time consuming and error-prone manual system configuration process. This is due to the need to maintain a high level of determinism, safety, and security of the production process itself and avoiding both safety-critical failures and costly production interruptions. The project “IoT@Work - Internet of Things at Work” aims at delivering tools and runtime mechanisms to significantly simplify commissioning, operating, and maintaining complex production processes, thus enabling Plug-and-Produce for automation systems. This paper presents a novel approach for the autoconfiguration of real-time Ethernet systems, and all relevant mechanisms. A case study, based on Profinet IO, evaluates the approach and shows its feasibility.