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TC1 - Standards

The Technical Committee 1, TC1, deals with Standards. The main focus of this activity is upon the IEC 61131-3 standard, as developed by the International Electrotechnical Committee. Since IEC holds the copyright, there are no downloadable versions of it available.
IEC 61131-3 provides the basis for PLCopen. This standard is part of the International Standard IEC 61131, providing a complete collection of standards on programmable controllers and their associated peripherals for more information on peripherals click here. It consists of the following parts:

IEC 61131-1 General information

establishes the definitions and identify the principal characteristics relevant to the selection and application of programmable controllers and their associated peripherals for the IEC overview and table of content, click here.

IEC 61131-2 Equipment requirements and tests

specifies equipment requirements and related tests for programmable controllers (PLC) and their associated peripherals for the IEC overview and table of content, click here.

IEC 61131-3 Programming Languages - providing the basis

defines, as a minimum set, the basic programming elements, syntactic and semantic rules for the most commonly used programming languages, including graphical languages of Ladder Diagram and Functional Block Diagram, and Textual languages of Instruction List and structured Text; as well as major fields of application, applicable tests and means by which manufacturers may expand or adapt those basic sets to their own programmable controller implementations this website is mostly dedicated to IEC 61131-3, and contains a lot of information on it - check it out via the overview on your left side. For the IEC overview and table of content, click here. For the PLCopen introduction in word format. For evaluation of software, click here.

IEC 61131-4 User Guidelines

A technical report providing general overview information and application guidelines of the standard for the end user of programmable controllers for the IEC overview and table of content, click here.

IEC 61131-5 Messaging service specification

defines the data communication between programmable controllers and other electronic systems using the Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS, according to International Standard ISO/IEC 9506 for the IEC overview and table of content, click here. For the PLCopen introduction, click here.

IEC 61131-7 Fuzzy control programming

defines basic programming elements for fuzzy logic control as used in programmable controllers. For the PLCopen introduction, click here.

IEC 61131-8 Guidelines for the application and implementation of programming languages

provides a software developers guide for the programming languages defined in part 3 for the IEC overview and table of content, click here.

(Note: Part 6 is reserved for future use.)

IEC 61131-3 : providing the basis

The PLCopen activities are based upon the IEC 61131-3 standard, the only global standard for industrial control programming. It harmonizes the way people design and operate industrial controls by standardizing the programming interface. A standard programming interface allows people with different backgrounds and skills to create different elements of a program during different stages of the software lifecycle: specification, design, implementation, testing, installation and maintenance. Yet all pieces adhere to a common structure and work together harmoniously. The standard includes the definition of the Sequential Function Chart (SFC) language, used to structure the internal organization of a program, and four inter-operable programming languages: Instruction List (IL), Ladder Diagram (LD), Function Block Diagram (FBD) and Structured Text (ST). Via decomposition into logical elements, modularization and modern software techniques, each program is structured, increasing its re-usability, reducing errors and increasing programming and user efficiency.