WP 8 Engineering of VAN platform for Automation Systems      

  WP 8 Engineering of VAN platform for Automation Systems
Original Objectives of WP8

The original objective of this work package within VAN project was the support of the different work packages WP2 to WP7 for engineering purposes. Additionally, it was planned to provide engineering support to the pilot implementations, called Industrial Experimental Setups (IESs), of WP9, where basic features of the VAN connected automation system are shown. This support should mainly focus on necessary enhancements developed by VAN and provide the adequate engineering tool environment to configure these enhancements and features. The following tasks were foreseen:
Distributed Engineering in Virtual Automation Networks
  • Research inside today's engineering concept and the necessary additions for each technology, including the engineering process. A distinction should be made between the existing tools and the necessary additions, and the differences in the engineering process should be highlighted.
  • Specification of the engineering tool platform.
  • Specification of engineering tools which are able to fulfil VAN requirements. The Virtual Automation Networks engineering tools should be based on a modular concept for easy integration and extension by e.g. plug-ins. For the scope of VAN existing engineering tools should build the basis and should be extended if possible.
  • Prototype implementation of the tools that should show the main new features and functions. The engineering tool prototypes for wireless cells and real-time in automation as well as the prototype to check the concepts and to support the installation for validation and test need not necessarily be direct part of the VAN project as corresponding tools should be developed by the key players of this project (Siemens, Schneider, Phoenix) independently of VAN anyway.

Achievements and Results

The final achievement, the support of the IES for Factory Automation and Process Industry by engineering prototypes for an integrated and a stand-alone engineering tool concept, has been reached by a stepwise approach that followed mainly the original description of work.

The starting point has been an investigation of the engineering approach including the life cycle of existing tools relevant for VAN. Based on this investigation the requirements for VAN engineering have been defined. The next step has been the definition of the workflow for the complete VAN engineering process that follows a hierarchical approach. The top-level activities have been refined by separate workflow diagrams and all activities and decisions of the workflows have been described and further refined where required. By this the necessary enhancements for existing tools and integration of them in the Virtual Automation Networks platform have been identified. Moreover, a first version of an UML-based information model for the representation of the automation system has been defined.

During the whole project life cycle this information model has been refined due to the growing knowledge and information flow within the VAN project. An analysis of existing device description languages and the necessary enhancements with respect to applicableness for VAN engineering has been performed.

Based on all this information the architecture for a VAN engineering platform has been developed and the key interfaces of VAN engineering tools to ASEs, the VAN information model, and VAN devices have been defined. The architecture for the Virtual Automation Networks (VAN) engineering platform is an approach with two different concepts and solutions in order to support the necessary enhancements for engineering of VAN features. One approach is the integration of new VAN enhancements in existing engineering tools and it is more device focused. The other one is the stand-alone tool concept with the objective to support the overview of a complete VAN system. With TCI and FDT/DTM two technologies have been analysed and selected for an easier integration and coupling of the VAN enhancements in existing engineering tools.

The delivered engineering tool prototype for the stand-alone concept realizes the top-down engineering approach of VAN. It covers the two roles of engineering tools that are, a VAN Engineering Client for Automation Systems (VAN-ECS) and a VAN Engineering Client for Automation Devices (VAN-ECD) for the configuration of a device. With this it is possible to define VAN domains, sub domains and VAN devices and to set all ASE parameters and thus to configure a single VAN device.

The delivered integrated VAN engineering tool environment follows the approach to enhance existing engineering tools for VAN functionalities in order to show a possible migration towards VAN. It covers mainly the role of a VAN Engineering Client for Automation Systems (VAN-ECS) and it uses the result (Instance Model) of the stand-alone VAN engineering tool prototype. With this it is possible to integrate VAN devices within Step7 and to set all ASE parameters and thus to configure VAN devices.

Beside the tools itself, specifications have been delivered that describe the knowledge that is necessary to install, setup and to use the tools.

Based on these two main deliverables the specific support and requirements, which are PKI, name based routing and the support of additional ASE classes, of the two final Industrial Experimental Setups for Process Industry and Factory Automation have been collected and analysed. The integration of PKI with the certification authority structure, new PKI ASE class and usage of secure communication (https) have been analysed in detail and the necessary interfaces and attributes for the PKI integration within the VAN engineering have been defined.

For the name based routing, the implementation of work package WP2 has been selected for reuse, the interfaces and attributes of the new wrapper classes have been defined and a new C-Library has been created. This was necessary because the implementation from work package WP2 is made in Java.

Beside these two main subjects the support of additional ASE classes, especially the Telecontrol ASE, the common development scenario and the setup for the specific machines (engineering client, access points and device), have been defined.


Work package 8 Engineering of VAN platform for embedded automation systems
Task 8.1 Status, analysis, requirements of engineering for embedded automation systems
Task 8.2 Specification of engineering process
Task 8.3 Engineering related product data descriptions
Task 8.4 Engineering tool integration concept and tool interfaces
Task 8.5 Engineering Tool Prototype for stand alone concept
Task 8.6 Engineering Tool Prototype for integrated concept
Task 8.7 Engineering Tool Prototype for Demonstrator


Delivery date Deliverable
Jan, 2006 Overview on existing engineering tools and requirements for engineering tools for the "VAN" platform
May, 2006 Engineering process concept and specification
Aug, 2006 Specification of a product data model in general and of the mandatory product data
Oct, 2007 Specification of object model and tool interfaces for VAN engineering tool platform.
Apr, 2008 Specification of Engineering Tool Prototypes for Stand-Alone Concept.
Apr, 2008 Specification of Engineering Tool Prototypes for Integrated Concept
Aug, 2008 Prototypes implementation of Engineering Tool Prototypes for Stand-Alone Concept.
Aug, 2008 Prototype implementation of Engineering Tool, Prototypes for Integrated Concept.
Sep, 2008 Implementation of Engineering Tool Prototypes for Stand-Alone Concept
Sep, 2008 Implementation of Engineering Tool Prototypes for Integrated Concept
Dec, 2008 Specification of Engineering Tool Support for the Industrial Experimental Setups.
Jan, 2009 Specification of Engineering Tool Support for the IES
Jun, 2009 Prototype Implementation of Engineering Tool Support for the IES