Concept For An Interoperable Behavior Library For Virtual Commissioning Using PLCopenXML

A shorter product life cycle and therefore, reduced project duration is the major success factor for machinery and plant engineering today. One use case for Virtual Commissioning (VC) is the early software test without an existing plant. The primary effort of VC lies in the manual creation of the plant model. There are various simulation tools with different advantages available. Selecting one tool has consequences for the whole engineering process. The exchange of models across different tools is not possible or discouraged by the respective vendors due to various reasons. This paper describes a concept to exchange behavior models via the table-based import interfaces for an automated model generation within common simulation tools. The concept utilizes an approach to exchange the behavior of components using the vendor-neutral and standardized programming language PLCopenXML containing all IEC 61131-3 programming languages. This removes the main obstacle for a broader industrial application of VC, as it minimizes the manual effort for creating and exchanging behavior models through the use of standardized library elements and existing interfaces.