Development of a distributed process control programming tool for function block description

Production plants have been complicated by the diversification of products. In order to control complicated production plants, distributed process control is a powerful approach. In the development of a distributed process control system, it is difficult to develop its software because distributed controllers complicatedly interact with each other. For that reason, the function block model, which is the specification language for distributed process control logic, is being standardized in IEC61499-1. A distributed process control programming tool for function block description is proposed. It is possible to describe control programs hierarchically by using function blocks. The GUI of this tool supplies multi-windows which can simultaneously display function blocks on different hierarchical levels. In this tool, inputted programs can also be verified by a simulation. This tool is applied to the control program description of an automatic carrier system. It has been confirmed that the control program is completely described and simulated by using this tool.