Experimental Platform for Testing Open Process

Automation Technologies Based on OPC UA and

IEC 61499*
1st Egydio Tadeu G. Ramos 2nd Anna Paula V. de A. Aguiar 3rd George Acioli Júnior
Electrical Engineering Department Electrical Engineering Department Electrical Engineering Department
Federal University of Campina Grande Federal University of Campina Grande Federal University of Campina Grande
Campina Grande, Brazil Campina Grande, Brazil Campina Grande, Brazil
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

4th Péricles Rezende Barros 5th Marcelo Lopes de Lima

Electrical Engineering Department CENPES/Petrobras
Federal University of Campina Grande Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Campina Grande, Brazil [email protected]
[email protected]
2024 Symposium on Internet of Things (SIoT) | 979-8-3315-0746-6/24/$31.00 ©2024 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/SIOT63830.2024.10780765

Abstract—This paper presents a process control system plat- systems based on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) will
form for testing Open Process Automation technologies and gradually evolve into distributed control systems based on
Industrial Internet of Things attributes. The platform comprises embedded systems [3].
a temperature process and two controllers running a distributed
IEC 61499 function blocks application. The OPC UA protocol One challenge is the combination of smart devices and
is used for the data exchange between the devices, with the traditional equipment and machines that require machine-
definition of an information model. A test was performed by to-machine (M2M) communication to guide the integration
connecting an external client to the platform to monitor and process. M2M communication allows devices on the same net-
control the process variables. By combining the IEC 61499 work to exchange information and carry out actions completely
distributed control applications with the OPC UA protocol,
the setup is used to assess the attributes of interoperability, autonomously [1]. It is mainly used for remote supervision of
modularity and application portability. the machine itself and the environment in which it is located.
Index Terms—industrial automation, open process automation, Another point to be considered when implementing Industry
IIoT, OPC UA, IEC 61499. 4.0 technologies is the use of consolidated standards. Stan-
dards such as OPC-UA (IEC 62541) and function blocks (IEC
I. I NTRODUCTION 61499) have been used to promote the information exchange
The concept of Internet of Things (IoT) is fundamental between devices and distributed control development, facili-
in the context of industry 4.0 [1]. IoT technologies allow tating interoperability and portability. The unified OPC UA
intelligent services to be available for users through collab- architecture provides a standardized object-oriented modeling
oration between the devices that make up the systems. It method to simplify integration processes between multiple
is easy to find several recommendations in the literature on devices and the cloud at the information level [4].
the use of consolidated and emerging technologies [2]. The The IEC 61499 standard provides a graphical representation
Internet of Things in the industrial environment is known as of distributed control applications by encapsulating algorithms
the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The objective of this is in a software component functional block (FB) with a generic
to simplify process automation, improving remote production graphical interface. Data exchanges between FBs are accom-
and monitoring. plished by event and data connections that provide an abstract
With the insertion of IIoT concepts in the industrial en- model of information exchange between control functions [4].
vironment, the architecture that was vertical, following the To integrate the technologies of Industry 4.0 to the process
traditional automation pyramid, ceases to exist. Main emphasis control systems (PCS) field, the Open Process Automation
is placed on technologies that contribute to cyber-physical Forum (OPAF) was created. The OPAF defines an architecture
integration, including remote and distributed control and real- for open process automation. In 2019, the first version of the
time data analysis. Thus, the need arises for all devices to Open Process Automation Standard (O-PAS) was launched.
communicate directly. It is expected that centralized control It groups a set of open standards already known to the
industry, such as the OPC UA and the IEC 61499. The
This work was sponsored by Petrobras, Brazil. architecture proposed by O-PAS is of a flexible and totally

979-8-3315-0746-6/24/$31.00 ©2024 IEEE

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connected system, where all the devices can communicate
directly using open protocols [6]. This allows us to achieve
a set of key attributes, such as interoperability, modularity,
portability, interchangeability and security [5].
In the context of assessing some of the key attributes
for Open Process Automation, this paper presents a process
control system platform for testing automation technologies
and IIoT attributes. It consists of a process and two controllers
running a distributed IEC 61499 function blocks application.
The structure is decentralized and all the communication
is performed by using the OPC UA protocol. These char-
acteristics allows to achieve a system with interoperability,
modularity and application portability, which are key attributes
for the O-PAS. Fig. 1. Information model in OPC UA [7].
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the basics
of OPC UA and IEC 61499 function blocks are presented. The
architecture and components of the platform are described in B. IEC 61499
Section III. In Section IV, the results of a test performed to
the system are presented. The conclusions are in Section V. The IEC 61499 standard describes the architecture and re-
quirements to design event-driven function block applications
II. T ECHNOLOGIES FOR I NDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION oriented to distributed control systems. It is an extension of
the time-driven function blocks defined in the IEC 61131-3
In this Section, the main technologies used for the devel- standard [8].
opment of the platform are presented. First, the OPC UA is The interface of an IEC 61499 function block is presented
used as the protocol to standardize the communication between in Fig. 2. There are inputs and outputs for events and data.
different devices and applications over the network. Then, Each data has one or more associated events. The trigger
the IEC 61499 is used to develop the control application of an event updates the data associated with it and executes
distributed in the controllers. the corresponding algorithm implemented into the block. The
logic inside the block is based on a state machine, called an
A. OPC UA
execution control chart (ECC), which tracks the current state
The Open Platform Communication - Unified Architecture of the block and executes algorithms based on state transitions
(OPC UA), proposed by the OPC Foundation, is presented triggered by events.
in the IEC 62541 standard. It is a communication protocol
used for perform the data integration at the plant level of
process control systems. This allows to achieve interoperability
between devices from different manufacturers connected to the
network.
OPC UA is based on two main pillars: the communication
infrastructure and the information meta-model [1]. The com-
munication infrastructure is related to the network protocols
used for the data exchange. The transport can be done by
using the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or by the Web
Server (WS) infrastructures.
The meta-model definition of OPC UA, called address
space, is used to describe an object-oriented information
model. It allows to defines a common semantic for the data that
will be exchanged, so that different devices can communicate
if they know the information model.
An example of the structure for the information model in Fig. 2. IEC 61499 function block [8].
OPC UA is presented in Fig. 1. The object-oriented paradigm
allows to inherit the structure from other types. Each object The IEC 61499 function blocks applications are executed
is a node that may contain a set of properties and methods over a runtime environment, that forms an interface to interpret
associated. The instances of the objects are created in the OPC the application. This allows for decoupling the software from
UA server, which can be extended with additional nodes. The the hardware running it, so that the same application can run
clients can access the instance nodes of the server, without on multiple devices, provided that they are compatible with
known the complete information model. the runtime. A list of available runtimes is presented in [9].

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One popular open-source runtime is the Eclipse 4diac FORTE – MVEscrita and MVLeitura are the read/write
[13]. and read-only nodes for the manipulated variable,
respectively;
III. S YSTEM D ESCRIPTION – SPEscrita and SPLeitura are the read/write
and read-only nodes for the setpoint of the closed-
In this Section, the platform structure and the description of
loop, respectively;
its components are presented. In Fig. 3, the general structure
– Kp, Ti and Td are the proportional, integral
of the distributed control system is presented. It is constituted
and derivative parameters of the PID controller
by a temperature process, two controllers and an OPC UA
(read/write);
external client used to visualize the data and perform exper-
– ModoEscrita and ModoLeitura are the
iments on the system. These devices communicate with each
read/write and read-only nodes for the Mode of
other using the OPC UA protocol.
the controller, respectively. The Mode is a string
used to define if the process is in open-loop or
in closed-loop with a controller. A value of "0"
corresponds to the open-loop process, while a value
of "1" corresponds to the closed-loop.
The nodes into the Processo folder are accessed by the
controllers and the external OPC UA client, as shown in
Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Structure of the distributed control system over an OPC UA network.

The three main components of Fig. 3 are:

• Temperature process:
Consists in a heating process, where the temperature is
the process variable (PV) to be controlled, and the duty
cycle of a pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal is the Fig. 4. Information model of the OPC UA server.
manipulated variable (MV) [10]. By increasing the value
of the MV, heat is added to the process, increasing the A PID controller block for the process temperature runs
temperature . The control problem consists in keeps the in Controller 2. It calculates the values of the MV so
PV in a certain value. that the PV tracks the desired setpoint (SP). Controller
The temperature process also contains an OPC UA server 2 acts as a client to the OPC UA server in Controller 1,
that expose the values of the PV and read the MV for the reading the PV, SP, Mode and PID controller parameters,
controllers. and writing the value of the MV calculated.
• Controllers: • External client:
Consists of two Raspberry PI Model 2 that run a dis- The OPC UA server running in the Controller 1 enable the
tributed IEC 61499 control application. From Fig. 3, interoperability of the platform. External OPC UA clients
Controller 1 communicates with the OPC UA server in can then be connected to monitor and control the process.
the Temperature Process to read the value of the PV and In this scenario, the BR-Tuning software was connected
write the value of the MV. It also contains an OPC UA to the system as an external OPC UA client [11]. It can
server with a specified information model, to provide the monitors the variables of the server in Controller 1 and
process data to external clients and Controller 2, making plots the values of the PV, MV and SP in real time. It
it possible to achieve interoperability. The information is also designed to perform a set open and closed-loop
model is presented in Fig. 4, where the Processo folder experiments on the process, to collect data that can be
contains the following nodes: used tuning the PID controller parameters or evaluate the
– PV is the process variable (read-only); control loop.

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 IV. R ESULTS
In this Section, the results of the tests performed on the
platform are presented. The aim was to validate the interop-
erability and modularity key attributes desired. First, the IEC
61499 control program, that is distributed between the two
controllers, is presented. Then, a test was performed to the Fig. 5. Variables of the OPC UA server in Controller 1.
system by using the external OPC UA client.

A. IEC 61499 function block application

The application executing in the controllers is presented in
Fig. 7. It consists of a function block diagram programmed
using the IEC 61499 standard. The Eclipse 4diac IDE [12] was
used for programming the application. For execution of the
program, each controller runs the Eclipse 4diac FORTE run-
time [13]. To implement the OPC UA server, the Open62541
library was used [14].
The function blocks of the application presented in Fig. 7
are distributed between the controllers. The blocks in blue are
mapped to Controller 1 and the block in red is mapped to
Controller 2. Fig. 6. Experiment performed using the BR-Tuning software.
To perform the communication with the OPC UA server
contained in the temperature process, two client function
blocks, namelly MVCliente and PVCliente, running on From the network perspective, it was not observed any delay
Controller 1, are used to implement the logic that reads the in the data communication caused by the overhead introduced
value of the MV and write the value of the PV, respectively. by the use of the OPC UA protocol. Future tests can be made to
They define a Client/Server OPC UA communication that evaluate the network performance when the process is changed
periodically updates the data. A sample time of 1 s was for one with a faster sample time.
chosen to update the data based on the response time of the
temperature process. V. C ONCLUSIONS
The blocks SubscribeOPCUAServer and
PublishOPCUAServer are used to implement the In this paper, an experimental platform to test industrial
OPC UA server with the information model shown in Fig. 4, automation technologies was presented. It is constituted by
using a Publish/Subscribe approach to read from and write to a temperature process and two controllers. A distributed ap-
the server, respectively. proach for control the process was applied using the IEC
A basic function block named PIDController, running 61499 standard. All the data exchange is performed via the
on Controller 2, was developed to executes the PID control OPC UA standard with a specific information model. This
logic. It reads the PV, SP, MV, Mode, and PID controller allows to add external clients to monitor the variables and
parameters from the OPC UA server, compute the MV and interact on the system.
write it back to the server. Also, an anti-windup logic was With this setup, it was possible to test some of the desired
implemented in the integral block, using the back-calculation attributes required by the O-PAS. The interoperability between
approach, based on the lower and higher bounds of the MV applications from different devices is performed by using the
that are specified as inputs of the block. OPC UA protocol with a specified information model and by
distributing the application across multiple controllers using
B. Test with an external OPC UA client the IEC 61499 standard.
To validate the setup, a test was performed by connecting For future works, some additions will be made to the
the external OPC UA client. First, the temperature process and plataform in order to achieve some conformance specifica-
the controllers communication were configured. Then, initial tions from the Open Process Automation Standard. First, in
data was provided to the controller parameters and the setpoint. the context of cybersecurity in Industrial IoT, specifications
A snapshot containing the values of the nodes in the OPC UA defined in the ISA 62443 standard will be added to perform
server of Controller 1 is shown in Fig. 5. access management and improve the security of the network
Then, the connection with the BR-Tuning software was [15]. The information model of the OPC UA server will be
made. A closed-loop experiment was performed, with steps changed in order to be in conformance with O-PAS.
signals applied to the setpoint. Fig. 6 shows the screen of the Also, the setup will be improved to test other key attributes
software with the plots over time of the PV (blue line), MV for O-PAS, such as the interchangeability of devices, hardware
(red line) and SP (black line). redundancy, software portability and network performance.

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 Fig. 7. IEC 61499 application.

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