Advertisement Feature Cover Story Software for Smart Engineering
B&R’s redesigned automation software development suite, Automation Studio, is aimed at keeping quality up, engineering costs down and time to market short in the face of growing product complexity. In an interview with technical editor Peter Kemptner, B&R head of software development Dr Hans Egermeier explains how Smart Engineering features included in Automation Studio 4 help software engineers create better products quickly, cost effectively and with a reduced workload
: Dr Egermeier, just over a year ago, B&R announced that Automation Studio 4 would not merely be a follow-up ver- sion to 3.9 but a newly designed system. This is exactly what Automation Studio has always claimed to be. What necessitated this large scale revision? A: Many things have changed since B&R first introduced Automation Studio in 1992. Software design meth- ods have changed dramatically in
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Above: Dr Hans Egermeier, B&R Automation
order to keep up with the growing complexity, functional density and diversity of each individual machine. It is no longer possible to fulfil time to market goals by first completing mechanical and hardware engineering and, once time has become critical, only then coding the software. The digit before the decimal point in the B&R Automation Studio version number has always been used to desig- nate actual system generations, a con- vention that goes far beyond the modifications usually reserved for a mere version change. Compared with the third generation, Automation Studio 4 offers an entirely new support structure that enables software engi- neers to achieve their design goals more quickly, which also means less stress. Working hand-in-hand with experts from other engineering disciplines, developers will be able to create simple solutions that will continue to keep pace with growing challenges. Q: Almost invariably, the first step in designing software for machine automation involves the hardware con- figuration. What changes will
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Above: In System Designer devices, components and connections are selected from the hardware catalogue
Below: across all levels of industrial automation, OPC UA provides vendor independent mechanisms for data and program access using client server architecture
Automation Studio 4 users be facing during this critical project phase? A: One of the most significant new features in Automation Studio 4 is System Designer, a tool that makes set- ting up the hardware configuration quick and easy while preventing errors. It provides a visual editor and lifelike representations of hardware to set-up and connect all of the necessary compo- nents. Using the device properties stored in the hardware catalogue, Automation Studio can check the plau- sibility of the configuration and set cer- tain parameters in the background. The conventional tree structure view has been retained in System Designer. It has been further optimised with regard to usability and efficiency, however, by borrowing a few tricks from the IT world such as copy/paste and drag-and- drop that can be applied either to indi- vidual or groups of hardware components. Being able to duplicate parts of a system along with all neces- sary parameters simplifies reuse, in turn reducing the time and effort required to create machine variants and options. Put simply, this approach goes a long way to providing optimal support for creating modular machine designs. Q: Speaking of interfaces, B&R has for some time been promoting model- based design using simulation. What is new in Automation Studio 4 on this front? A: In view of the high costs of single unit production, the first prototype of a machine should be able to hit the ground running. The established method to achieve this involves simu- lating product properties that are tested in the virtual world before any physical
parts are manufactured. To support model-based design, B&R already offers connectors for the automated import of C code or Structured Text lists from sim- ulation software such as Simulink and MapleSim using specifically developed code optimising algorithms to acceler- ate execution speed.
In Automation Studio 4, the code interface to these simulation tools has been optimised by including useful mechanisms that are uni- formly integrated at the meta level. In addition, entire function blocks can be transferred from Automation Studio to the simulation software for evaluation, optimisation and integra- tion with overall models. Q: In B&R systems, the OPC stan- dard for data access has been used for quite some time. How does the comprehensive conversion to OPC UA in Automation Studio 4 benefit design engineers? A: Unobstructed communication between all subsystems and compo- nents is essential for the develop- ment and productivity of an automation solution. The OPC UA protocol (Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control - Unified Architecture) offers conve- nient functions for platform indepen- dent data and program access that greatly simplifies the work being done in software engineering. An integrated browser automati- cally detects and identifies servers and the data stored there. Using OPC UA throughout the engineering and run-time environment contributes to long term feasibility since software applications and operating systems do not need to take all possible future options into account from the very beginning and do not require repro- gramming every time a new device type appears. Securing compatibility with third party components and sys- tems will further be facilitated by the fact that OPC UA will soon become an official IEC standard.
B&R Automation
www.br-automation.com T: 01733 371 320
Enter 200 MAY 2013 Automation
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