Modeling and verifying behavioral constraints for automation systems

A technical plant behavior using a functional description forms the basis for common understanding of different disciplines and is used for the draft of hardware and software. Correlations between specific functions of the automation components and system can be allowed or denied in the behavior model describing the tended reaction. This contribution proposes an approach for modeling and verifying formal behavioral constraints of automation systems. The approach is realized either with finite state machines or with regular expressions. Furthermore, this work presents a methodology to convert verbalized constraints into finite state machines or regular expressions. The approach is evaluated by means of a pick & place unit.