Classification of mechatronic components for efficient plant behaviour simulation

Today's increasing use of Virtual Commissioning during the development process of automated manufacturing plants paired with the still increasing request towards better control program quality leads to the need of improved virtual plants with more effortless set ups. The common techniques of simulating the plant within the Virtual Commissioning do no longer fulfil these needs, new approaches have to be developed. This paper examines ways to standardize Functional Mock-Up Unit based behaviour models of mechatronic components of such automated manufacturing plants. It is argued how such components can be classified to reach a distinction between different types to be able to develop standardized interfaces for every type. Therefore different approaches of classification coming from different academic and practical disciplines are considered and discussed. The most appropriate way is detected and exemplarily implemented. Hence the presented work shows a way of how to standardize the interfaces of behaviour models with the help of different classes of mechatronic components while increasing the quality of these behaviour models for more complex and accurate behaviour simulation of production plants for Virtual Commissioning as well as related applications.