Welcome to the PLCopen® electronic newsletter.
For comments or additional information check either www.PLCopen.org or send an email to Wendelien@PLCopen.org.
___________________________________________________________________________
PLCopen Newsletter - Issue June 2020
- PLCopen General Meeting 2021
- PLCopen Object Orientation Programming, version 0.9 Release for Comments
- PLCopen welcomes new members
- PLCopen YouTube channel – new video available on Safety
- New PLCopen Motion Control certifications
- Certification CL ST Keyence
- PLCopen training certifications
- InTech Magazine cover article on PLCopen Motion Control
__________________________________________________________________________
1. PLCopen General Meeting 2021
The annual PLCopen General Meeting will be held on Friday June 11. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this will be a virtual meeting.
If your company is a member of PLCopen and you would like to participate to this meeting, please contact us.
Participation from a company is not restricted to one person. Just be aware that each member company has one vote only.
back to headlines
__________________________________________________________________________
2. PLCopen Object Orientation Programming, version 0.9 Release for Comments
End of 2019 we started a new initiative on PLCopen Guidelines for Object Oriented Programming. The 3rd edition of the IEC 61131-3 standard enables the usage of Object Oriented Programming. Parallel to this, PLCopen has defined the concept of function block libraries including object orientation, as well as sets of function blocks for motion control, safety and communication.
Starting with OOP, several choices need to be made right from the beginning: are all function blocks in one Class? Think about the PLCopen Motion Control function blocks as an example, do we need then the AxisRef as the reference to the axis or even the MC_ as part of the FB name? How do they contain the methods? And will we use only methods, or also direct access to variables? Is the state machine for the axis controlled by the methods? Are all axes’ objects with methods, and we access them only via these methods? How about interfaces? And do we prefer composition above inheritance?
All these choices give a different look & feel to the users across the different systems, different training guidelines and differences in maintenance. And this is where PLCopen wants to help and give guidance to create a more homogeneous programming methodology.
Overall, there is little information on how to use OOP for industrial control or the operation technology (OT). The goal of this group is to help here with the following recommendations:
- Guidance to using OOP in addition to the “classical” way.
- Provide the same look & feel in using OOP across the different platforms and implementations.
- Create generic design patterns for industrial control programming.
- The classical programming way should be possible to be used in addition to the OOP way (e.g. this can mean that we have to extend the classical FBs with interfaces, methods, properties, and maybe input and outputs).
As an example, a boiler demo was used to represent the different forms of programming.
We have now published the first document “PLCopen Guidelines for usage of Object-Oriented Programming”, version 0.99 as Release for Comments. We look forward to receive your feedback and comments on this document by August 14, 2021 latest. Comments can be made directly in the pdf file and sent back.
The document can be downloaded from the PLCopen website.
back to headlines
__________________________________________________________________________
3. PLCopen welcomes new members
PLCopen is pleased to announce two new members:
Xaloo Technologies, based in Botswana, specialises in providing solutions and services for a wide range of Industrial Automation Systems.
Huawei Technologies, the Chinese global provider of information and communications technology (ICT), infrastructure and smart devices.
back to headlines
_______________________________________________________________________________
4. PLCopen YouTube channel – new videos available on Safety
Last year we started a YouTube channel to make the abundant PLCopen information also available in video format.
Two new videos on PLCopen Safety have now been posted on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2V6LB7hSiEnvbTNhijUGg.
We hope you will enjoy watching our videos and that they will show you on how to become more efficient in your automation.
back to headlines
_______________________________________________________________________________
5. New PLCopen Motion Control certifications
We are glad to announce that four members have been awarded the PLCopen Motion Control certificate:
CODESYS GmbH for their products CODESYS SoftMotion and CODESYS SoftMotionLight – version 4.9.0.0 (PLCopen Motion Control part 1)
KEBA AG for their product Kemro X – version 4.0.0 (PLCopen Motion Control part 1)
MITSUBISHI Electric Corporation for their product iQ-F Series FX5U/FX5UC/FX5UJ, GX Works3 -version 1.00A (PLCopen Motion Control part 1)
Siemens AG for their product SIMATIC Robot Library (SRL) – version V1.0.0.0 (PLCopen Motion Control part 4)
This brings the total number of certified companies to 28 and of certified products to 69.
For more information, please check our website www.PLCopen.org.
back to headlines
_______________________________________________________________________________
6. PLCopen Conformity Level ST Certification for Keyence
We are pleased to announce that the Japanese company KEYENCE Corporation which joined PLCopen a few years ago, has successfully passed the tests performed by the test laboratory Ifak in Germany, for the Certification of a system according to PLCopen Conformity Level for ST (Structured Text). The certification is for their product KV STUDIO.
For more information visit www.PLCopen.org
back to headlines
_______________________________________________________________________________
7. PLCopen training certifications
Xaloo Technologies, a new member, was certified as PLCopen certified training centre. And
Schneider Electric renewed their training certification for their Triconex courses in the USA.
For more information on the certified training centres please check our website www.PLCopen.org.
back to headlines
__________________________________________________________________________
8. InTech Magazine cover article on PLCopen Motion Control
InTech Magazine, the official publication of the International Society of Automation (ISA) published a cover article on PLCopen Motion Control in their April issue.
The article “Motion Control Programming, PLCopen makes it easier” was written by Bill Lydon, the Director of PLCopen North America.
Read the article to find out yourself how PLCopen standards simplify motion applications’ development and quality:
back to headlines
___________________________________________________________________________
PLCopen® is a registered trademark of the association PLCopen.