A pragmatic approach for modular control synthesis and implementation

Within the framework of Supervisory Control Theory, synthesis algorithms enable automatic generation of control rules from behavioural models of the process to be controlled and of goals to be achieved. This paper talks about a pragmatic use of these algorithms within an automation engineering context and focuses on two key issues: process and goals modelling and supervisory controller implementation. In this way, the approach presented in this paper combines the synthesis techniques and algorithms with an object-oriented automation method that supplies guidelines for the analysis, the design and the implementation of a modular control system. This pragmatic approach is applied to the synthesis and implementation of the control of an assembly station. It highlights the difficulties of the modelling step and its great influence on the synthesis result itself but also demonstrates the feasibility of our synthesis approach through a successful implementation in conformance with the IEC 61131-3 standard.