Engineering of distributed control systems

Current situation in industry is characterised by a strong trend towards distributed automation systems based on intelligent devices and intelligent decision making. Connectivity required to interact also in heterogeneous geographically distributed communication environments resulting in Virtual Automation Networks - VAN. This paper presents solutions which are part of the Engineering of the homonymous European IST NMP Integrated Project "VAN". The focus of the engineering is the development of an approach and providing a technical solution used for a seamless integration of engineered information for devices in Distributed Control Systems (DCSs) used in the VAN Project. Therefore the VAN project has specified a common engineering workflow for a seamless vertical and horizontal transfer of engineering information along the automation pyramid. For this, a UML based information model is developed to cover the functional, topological and network requirements on the engineering and their relation between each other at detailed level. The details of the engineering are derived from the VAN protocol specifications, which are based on the OSI Reference ASE model. [1]. This approach is described in detail in [2]. Therefore, this paper´s focus is to specify common engineering concept for automation systems as well as for their devices in distributed and heterogeneous networks. For this, the use of established IT technologies is in focus to ease a meltdown between office and automation network technology. Two concepts regarding this objective are presented. First is the engineering of distributed networks and transfer of engineered information into devices using a vendor independent tool. The second concept described explains how engineering information of distributed networks can be transferred and reused by using TCI [3] and the FDT/DTM [4] technology. Furthermore, this paper describes, how smart devices can be configured using web services in a secure way to start their application functionality. Using both concepts, new possibilities of sharing engineering information of different enterprises can be realised. This results in reduced costs during engineering, configuration and maintenance of a plant.