GEMMA based approach for generating PLCopen Automation projects

Nowadays, the collaboration among applications is imperative to improve automation engineering design process. There is a lack of methodologies that helps the designer to identify control system's main sequence, initial conditions, system start-up and shutdown. This paper addresses a methodology to develop automation systems, from specification to code generation conforming to PLCopen. In this work, the generic methodology is applied using GEMMA (Guide d'Étude des Modes de Marches et d'Arrěts), use cases and GRAFCET (GRAphe Fonctionnel de Commande, Etapes, Transitions). GEMMA is a guide to address the systematically search for all states in which an automated process can evolve; hence, it is used to identify the operation modes. Use cases are used to discover the actors that take part in each operation mode and a set of GRAFCET templates are employed to assist in the design of the use cases. Next, the paper presents a methodology for automatically generate the Automation project in PLCopen format. Finally, as case study, a drill station is presented as well as the generation of the automation project for this mechatronical unit.