Typical automation functions and their distribution in automation systems

The reutilization of proven automation solutions for automation systems is an essential approach to increase the profitability of engineering services. Additionally, distributed systems are increasingly important in automation systems. For this reason, this paper focuses on the aspect of distributed systems combined with the reutilization of automation tasks and solutions in the domains of process and production automation. To address this purpose the research project “Functional application design of Distributed Automation systems” (FAVA) was launched. This paper presents the objective of this research project, identifies deficits of the state-of-the-art and describes automation systems which have been analyzed in the FAVA project to identify automation tasks and their variants regarding to the distribution.