Digital Factory: An Industrial Case Study for Function Block-Oriented Development

The IEC 61499 standard is based on a modular design through the use of Function Blocks, which makes it easier to develop and maintain distributed automation systems. While the reusability of Function Blocks can save time and effort in system development, the standard promotes interoperability between different control system components, making it easier to integrate and interface with other systems. IEC 61499 supporting tools, such as 4diac FORTE provides support for this modular design, which can simplify the development process of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), reducing the cost of developing and deploying such systems. However, industry adoption is still slow. The standard is complex and the availability and functionality of tools that support it may be limited. In this work, the DINASORE framework is proposed as an engineering environment that implements IEC 61499 Function Block models. Also, it was studied how DINASORE can be used to design and implement IIoT by presenting a real-world industrial application scenario. Regarding the software development process for IIoT, results show that a Function Block oriented approach is better when compared to the traditional procedural programming approach.