Comprehensive formal description of IEC 61499 control devices

This work analyses the requirements for a comprehensive formal description of an IEC 61499 control device. The model captures functional properties, along with temporal properties, and architecture of a control device, which includes also underlying runtime environment and operating system. The paper presents a case study of an IEC 61499 control device utilizing the framework for distributed industrial automation and control (4DIAC) and gives an impression on analysis details that can be achieved by this modeling approach. The formal description is based on net condition/event systems and the model checking tools VisualVerifier and SESA.