Managing the Life-cycle of Industrial Automation Systems with Product Line Variability Models

The current trend towards component-based software architectures has also influenced the development of industrial automation systems (IAS). Despite many advances, the life-cycle management of large-scale, component-based IAS still remains a big challenge. The knowledge required for the maintenance and runtime reconfiguration is often tacit and relies on individual stakeholders' capabilities - an error-prone and risky strategy in safety critical environments. This paper presents an approach based on product line variability models to manage the lifecycle of IAS and to automate the maintenance and reconfiguration process. We complement the standard IEC 61499 with a variability modeling approach to support both initial deployment and runtime reconfiguration. We illustrate the automated model-based life-cycle management and maintenance process using sample IAS usage scenarios.