Interface driven domain-independent modeling architecture for "soft-commissioning" and "reality in the loop"

As industrial manufacturing and automation systems grow in complexity, there is a need for control software engineering support. Soft-commissioning and reality in the loop (RIL) are two novel approaches which allow coupling simulation models to real world entities and allow the analyst to pre-commission and test the behavior of a system, before it is completely built in reality. To be flexible and fast in building up a simulation model fulfilling the requirements of soft-commissioning and RIL there is a need for a component-based modeling architecture. We define the characteristic requirements, and derive an architecture out of them, which is discussed from different aspects. Finally we briefly present a simple example.