SOMC: Service-Oriented Modell-based Control – Dynamic Software for Dynamic Systems

• Applicants: Dr.-Ing. Bassam Alrifaee; Dr.-Ing. Lorenz Dörschel
• Subject Area: Automation, Mechatronics, Control Systems, Intelligent Technical Systems, Robotics
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468483200

This project pursues employing service-oriented software architectures, which possess high inherent flexibility, in order to increase the adaptability and maintainability of model-based control. The aim of the research project is the scientific investigation, conceptual development, implementation and experimental validation of service-oriented, model-based control.In times of digitalization and increasingly networked devices, the main challenges of control and automation technology are (i) to enable adjustments of control systems both offline and at runtime, (ii) to enable flexible system integration, and (iii) to keep the increasingly complex control systems maintainable. These challenges are difficult to address with state-of-the-art software architectures, where control software is classically designed based on block diagrams that are statically integrated. Individual functions of the block diagram are then assigned to separate ECUs. Due to this fixed structure, individual components of the control loop can hardly be replaced, as changes to individual functions often requires modifications in all other components. Therefore, adaptations of the control loop are hardly possible as they would imply different information flow directions.This project proposes a novel approach to solve this problem. We suggest formulating the elements of the control loop as services of a service-oriented software architecture. Therefore, the information flow in the software system does not correspond anymore to the cause-effect directions of the physical system. The expected advantages are (i) the flexible interconnections of the services (by using orchestration) enable adaptations to the control system at runtime and (ii) the well-defined interfaces of the services increase the maintainability. The necessary steps towards a service-oriented control loop in this project are the systematic formulation of the elements of the control loop as services, the development of orchestration mechanisms to dynamically integrate the services and the evaluation of the resulting dynamic effects. Since services of a service-oriented software architecture use typed interfaces for their requirements and guarantees, we will investigate model-based control methods, in order to link guarantees rooted in control theory to guarantees in the service domain. In particular, we will consider the connection between service guarantees and the model used for control design.This project will validate the methods using two different test benches, which will realistically showcase phenomena arising in distributed control systems. Thus, the test benches will allow to critically evaluate the performance of our novel approach and comparing it with classical approaches.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants