A Synthesis of the Standards IEC 61131 and IEC 61499 within the Design System SPaS - Software Project Tool for Automatic Control Systems

The contribution gives a short description of the software engineering tool SPaS, particularly considering the graphical flow chart design. SPaS is characterized by its technology-oriented engineering manner and by the in-built verification of its control layout. The graphical flow charts are compiled to a control program written in either of the languages: Instruction List, Structured Text, C or C++. This provides syntactically correct code for various PLC products, PCs or microcontrollers. The engineering tool is able to apply function blocks to distributed systems. Control engineers sometimes understand the IEC 61499 as a new programming language similar to those defined in IEC 61131-3 [Vya07]. That assumption does not cover the whole behavior of the new standard IEC 61499. The IEC 61499 incorporates advanced software technologies, such as object oriented software paradigms, which mostly are not per default usable in the IEC 61131-3. The contribution will show a bridge between both technologies under restrictive circumstances.