Rapid prototyping test-bed of logic control solutions for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

To properly deal with the increasing complexity of industrial distributed and agile manufacturing control systems, the use of methods and tools that support the designer in the definition, implementation and verification of intelligent logic control software is more and more necessary. Nowadays, many different software tools are available to face the rapid prototyping and closed loop simulation based verification of an automation system control software. Not so many hardware architecture are available to implement an hardware in the loop simulation where the controlled device consists of a real small scale industrial plant. In the present work a modular test-bed architecture which allows a complete simulation based verification of manufacturing plants logic control systems, and then its rapid prototyping, is discussed, with reference to an application example in the shoe manufacturing sector.