Recovering Semantics from Control Code for Improving Reusability in Industrial Edge Computing

The Industrial Internet and edge computing bring challenges to the capabilities of legacy programmable logic controllers. Reusing code from legacy programmable logic controllers and making them reusable software components can improve efficiency and reduce cost. Model-driven engineering is commonly adopted for efficient system design and development. However, multiple variants of these software components must be maintained for handling customization in Industrial Internet which will result in complexity and low efficiency. This paper proposes an executable hierarchical code model that intuitively captures data dependencies while preserving the structural and control flow information embedded within the code. The proposed modeling method is verified with a FESTO workpiece processing and sorting system to prove the concept.