Systematic Logic Controller Design as Sequential Function Chart Starting from Informal Specifications*

Today's automation industry is driven by the need for an increased productivity, higher flexibility, and higher individuality, and characterized by tailor-made and more complex control solutions. In the processing industry, logic controller design is often a manual, experience-based, and thus an error-prone procedure. Typically, the specifications are given by a set of informal requirements and a technical flowchart and both are used to be directly translated into the control code. This paper proposes a method in which the control program is constructed as a sequential function chart (SFC) by transforming the requirements via clearly defined intermediate formats. For the purpose of analysis, the resulting SFC can be translated algorithmically into timed automata. A rigorous verification can be used to determine whether all specifications are satisfied if a formal model of the plant is available which is then composed with the automata model of the logic controller (LC).