Object oriented models and communication protocols in the factory

An ongoing project aimed at using object oriented modeling as a complete and flexible technique to describe and analyze protocols and distributed applications is presented. In particular, a description of a specific factory communication protocol for the field applications is reported and a complete and unambiguous specification approach which ensures rapid prototyping, validation and performance evaluations is suggested. In the paper general factory communication issues are first discussed and then the object oriented approach for protocol description is considered in detail making reference to the specifications included in the SERCOS standard document as demonstrative example.