IEC 61499 projects

Focus on IEC 61499

The solution proposed by Daedalus foresees a radical change in the way multiples simulation models are conceived. In fact, the paradigmatic shift enabled by the IEC-61499 Cyber-Physical systems of the project transforms a simulation model from a simple numerical representation of the system for forecasting reasons into a concrete and essential part of the system itself (its “Cyber” part), composed of various behavioral models to fully capture its multi-disciplinary nature.

What Daedalus proposes is to bring this approach into the industrial automation domain as a mean to maximizing the impact of the distributed intelligence technologies that the project will develop. The Digital Marketplace developed by the project will act as a catalyser to generate an exponential push to the adoption of the IEC-61499 standard, proposing an appealing business environments for stakeholders of the automation domain.

The IEC-61499 approach of Daedalus is the only one available that can offer today effective and effort-efficient orchestration of separately intelligent devices (CPS).

The approach of Daedalus to competition from the big companies of the industrial automation sector is to propose a common Ecosystem on which competitive digital marketplaces can coexist: by having direct access (through licensing) to the project reference implementations, relevant firms will be attracted to support the standard and, thus, the Ecosystem because of the low risks and costs of transitioning to IEC-61499. Even if competitive Marketplaces will arise, the overall ecosystem will grow, sustaining the impact of Daedalus.

The several enhancements that Daedalus proposes to foster a wide acceptance of de-centralized approaches to automation can easily be used to extend and complement the IEC 61499 standard - published by the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) TC 65/SC 65B “Measurement and control devices”- which is currently the most relevant one for distributed automation systems.