Virtual Commissioning of Production Machines, Part 1: Overview

Modern production machines contain an increasingly complex amount of real-time software, typically running on a PLC, PAC, or industrial PC. In order to test and verify the functionality before the physical machine is available, virtual commissioning based on modeling, simulation, and code generation has become a well-proven design workflow. MathWorks software for physical modeling, including CAD import, is used to implement the plant model. Simulink^® and Stateflow^® help engineers to design, parameterize, and test their closed-loop control software and state machines. Finally, automatic code generation of real-time C/C++ or IEC 61131-3 ST/LD code is used to implement the previously tested functionality on a PLC.