Quantitative and qualitative comparisons of PLC programs for a small testbed with a focus on human issues

Lucas, M.R.; Tilbury, Dawn M.

doi:10.1109/acc.2002.1024583

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Dandachi et al [10] provided similar metrics to be applied to PLC programs given in Sequential Function Chart language. A different application of software measures is presented by Lucas and Tilbury in [11]. There, the complexity of solutions to the same problem described with different PLC languages is measured and compared.…”

Section: Software Quality and Diagnosismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Software quality measures to determine the diagnosability of PLC applications

Younis

Frey

2007

2007 IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies &Amp; Factory Automation (EFTA 2007)

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In case of failures in a PLC controlled process the problem of diagnosis arises. Today this is often a manual task. Whenever the failure in the controlled system is not directly related to an actuator, its sources have to be tracked back through the PLC program to the corresponding sensors. This process can be very time consuming. The presented work aims at providing a means for determining this effort and to assist the diagnosis process. To do so, software quality measures are studied. The evaluation of these measures on a program shows the most complex parts and hence gives hints on possible improvements. During the calculation of the measures graphical representations of some dependency relations are derived. These can be used as an aid for the engineer in the actual diagnosis process. Two case studies illustrate the presented approach.

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Section: Software Quality and Diagnosismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Risk 1-10 An easy program, little risk [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Complex program, endurable risk 21-50 Very Complex program, high risk >50…”

Section: Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Software quality measures to determine the diagnosability of PLC applications

Younis

Frey

2007

2007 IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies &Amp; Factory Automation (EFTA 2007)

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“…The seven experiments by the author's team (4.2 -4.8) highlight different complex automation tasks and different automation systems characteristics as given in Table 1 [67] [68] demonstrate how task analysis could be usefully applied for the preliminary assessment of the effectiveness and perhaps even the efficiency of logic control design methodologies. Lucas [67] calculated the time to create a simple logic design program on the basis of low level user operations, e.g.…”

Section: Selected Usability Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lucas [67] calculated the time to create a simple logic design program on the basis of low level user operations, e.g. keystrokes, mouse clicks and mental operations, for IEC 61131-3 Ladder Logic Diagrams (LL 405 min), Petri Nets (PN 1100 min) and modular Finite State machine logic (mFSM 1500 min) showing the significant difference given by the notation itself.…”

Section: Selected Usability Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If time is a freely selectable variable, this calculation basically provides a good comparison between notations in terms of effect per time. For the experimental design time may be fixed and restricted to a calculated amount of time with GOMS [67] or pre-experiments similar to an exam or left open for subject's decision, delivering the modeling results when they feel ready. Fixed timing implies that the effectiveness measure already includes a statement on efficiency.…”

Section: Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Usability Experiments to Evaluate UML/SysML-Based Model Driven Software Engineering Notations for Logic Control in Manufacturing Automation

Vogel‐Heuser¹

2014

JSEA

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Many industrial companies and researchers are looking for more efficient model driven engineering approaches (MDE) in software engineering of manufacturing automation systems (MS) especially for logic control programming, but are uncertain about the applicability and effort needed to implement those approaches in comparison to classical Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) programming with IEC 61131-3. The paper summarizes results of usability experiments evaluating UML and SysML as software engineering notations for a MDE applied in the domain of manufacturing systems. Modeling MS needs to cover the domain specific characteristics, i.e. hybrid process, real time requirements and communication requirements. In addition the paper presents factors, constraint and practical experience for the development of further usability experiments. The paper gives examples of notational expressiveness and weaknesses of UML and SysML. The appendix delivers detailed master models, representing the correct best suited model, and evaluation schemes of the experiment, which is helpful if setting up own empirical experiments.

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