Improving interoperability of Virtual Commissioning toolchains by using OPC-UA-based technologies

It is well-known that one the most important challenges in industrial manufacturing processes is the reduction of lead-times and delays during the on-site commissioning. In applications in which several automation systems are used, such as in aeronautics or automotive manufacturing cells, several PLC's and drives are used to control the motion of the different electromechanical components. In order to verify and validate (V&V) automation code before deployment in the production environment, virtual commissioning (VC) techniques have become of great interest in the last decades. Even if VC simulation approaches, based on software/hardware-in-the-loop (SiL, HiL), have shown effectiveness to V&V automation code, the continuity from the execution to the simulation layers may not be ensured due to a lack of interoperability in the toolchain. Additionally, the development of reliable component models is a complex task of the VC solution since it requires a high level of mechatronics expertise. In order to avoid losing information between the execution and the simulation layers of VC toolchains, this paper presents a SiL based approach for interconnecting the PLC's with the VC simulation tool by means of OPC-UA-based technologies. In addition, in order to develop the functional models, we propose a library-based development. This will facilitate seamless flow of information between different PLC editors and the simulation layer. SiL simulations of the suggested approach on an automotive manufacturing cell are performed and show digital continuity from the execution to the simulation layer.