Towards Integrating Interface Behavior Models for Components of Distributed Control Software.

Modeling distributed control software facilitates reacting to changing hardware configurations due to the higher abstraction level. Well-designed modules of such systems may be arranged flexibly to perform production tasks, which need to be adapted during the life-cycle of the system. Although IEC 61499 supports modeling the relations between inputs and outputs of its software components as service sequence models, these models are not integrated with the rest of the development process. In this paper, we outline our vision of using the captured information on the interface behavior for development tasks of distributed control software modeled according to IEC 61499. The proposed research directions can contribute to the acceptance of modeling methods in the domain, as appropriate tool support can notably leverage the benefit of models.