Using a meta-model to build operational architectures of automation systems for critical processes

This paper addresses the design of the operational architecture of a critical system control. This design results from the allocation of control functions onto physical devices by taking into account numerous constraints such as capability, safety, time performance or reliability constraints. This paper focuses on the two first ones, capability and safety constraints by proposing a method based on reachability analysis in a network of communicating automata. The link with complementary studies about time performance or reliability constraints is established using an UML architecture meta-model that captures and shares information about control architectures. Automata models and their parameters used for reachability analysis are derived from this meta-model and, conversely, generated operational architectures give rise to a set of meta-model instances that can be used as input for complementary evaluation.