A reference architecture for service-oriented control procedures and its implementation with SysML and Grafchart

Innovative engineering methods are needed to enhance the adaptability and agility of industrial control procedures and concurrently manage their rising complexity. Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) constitutes a promising paradigm to meet these challenges. To apply the rather abstract SOA principles to industrial automation, a model-driven engineering method is presented in this paper. Therefore, a reference architecture is introduced providing a framework to structure and define services for control tasks in a convenient way. The application of the engineering method is supported by an implementation concept. It uses SysML during the design phase and the process modeling and control language Grafchart for the execution of service-oriented control procedures.