IEC61499 Technologies

While Part 1 of the IEC 61499 Standard defines an implementable reference architecture for the development, reuse and deployment of Function Blocks (FBs) in distributed and embedded industrial control and automation systems, and Part 2 of the Standard defines requirements for software tools to support the required engineering tasks, Part 4 of IEC 61499 defines requirements for Compliance Profiles. These are intended to ensure that compliant distributed devices and software tools can possess the following attributes of open systems:

  • Portability: Software tools can accept and correctly interpret software components and system configurations produced by other software tools.
  • Configurability: Devices and software components can be selected, assigned locations, interconnected, and parameterized by software tools from multiple vendors.
  • Interoperability: Devices can operate together to perform the functions specified by one or more distributed applications

The following table summarizes an overview of commercially available, freeware and open source software tools, runtime platforms and component libraries for the IEC 61499 architecture, which includes information about compliance requirements.

  Vendor / Developer Editor Runtime Standard Compliance Libraries Adaptors Compliance profile Communication FB Devices Features
FBDK Holobloc Java Java Partial, DSF execution Standard Yes ASN.1, XML TCP/IP 0,1,2 (partial)   
Fbench University of Auckland Java Java (FBDK)  Partial, DSF execution  Standard  Yes  ASN.1, XML  TCP/IP  0,1,2 (partial 2)  
IEC61499 application generator Tampere University of Technology XML  No runtime: target code generated from XML  N/A  N/A  N/A  N/A ? ??  
4DIAC Open Source Eclipse C++  Yes  Standard  No  Yes  TCP/IP, etc 0,1,2 (2 requires runtime recompilation)  Application overview
ISaGRAF ISaGRAF .NET Proprietary C based PLC way runtime  Partial, cyclic execution  Standard  No  Proprietary  TCP/IP, MODBUS  0,1  Transparent distribution
NxtOne NxtControl .NET C/C++  Yes  Standard, Building automation, 3D, etc  Yes ASN.1, XML  TCP/IP, MODBUS, OPC-UA, EtherCAT, Profibus, etc.  0,1,2  Editor, Optimised runtime, Debugging, Visualization
BlokIDE and BlokSynk University of Auckland .NET C  Partial, synchronious execution Partial No  ?? TCP/IP 0,1,2 (2 requires runtime recompilation)  Hierarchical ECC, deterministic synchronious execution
FBBuilder Shangai Jiaotong University .NET C/C++  Partial Partial  Unknown No TCP/IP 0,1,2 (2 requires runtime recompilation) Dynamic reconfiguration (service based runtime)