Specifying a Control Program with High Level Graphical Editors 2001-01-3055

This paper presents a graphical application-oriented development environment that can reduce the cost of control software development. It consists of a sample set of editors targeted toward machining and welding operations. These editors solicit from the user the mechanical and electrical characteristics of the physical implementation of his machine and the behavior of the machine in a style familiar to OEMs, end users, and designers. Each editor is loosely based on a schematic diagram that OEMs use when building machine tools.

The information extracted by these editors is then used to generate a symbolic representation of the control code. Lastly, the development environment can then automatically generate the resulting ladder logic for a specific control system and list of input/output address assignments. The net result is that this environment increases the user’s productivity, reduces debugging and startup time, eliminates or reduces rework, and enforces control and coding standards.