Platform Independent Specification of Engineering Model Transformations

Production machine engineering involves multiple engineering disciplines defining together the configuration of each machine. Each of these disciplines provides an engineering model, which influences engineering models from other disciplines and is itself influenced by other engineering models. Therefore, building a valid configuration of a production machine requires the reconciliation of engineering models of all involved engineering disciplines. Up to now, execution of model reconciliations by model transformation systems was mainly considered for desktop model transformation environments. The analysis of engineering processes and customer applications of production machines revealed that the industrial application of model transformations requires the execution of the same model transformation specification on different execution environments depending on the initiator of the model reconciliation. An electrical engineer runs the model transformation on his desktop between locally installed engineering applications for small organizations or on his field programming device for commissioning scenarios. For complex systems and bigger organizations, model transformations are executed on an enterprise product lifecycle management (PLM) server. A machine operator triggers model transformations on the real-time system of an automation controller for on-site reconfigurable machines, e.g. by physically connecting a modular device to a production machine. To tackle this scenario, this thesis presents a new application of the model driven architecture (MDA), which transforms a platform independent model transformation specifications (PIM-MT) to platform specific model transformation specifications (PSM-MT) by higher order transformations (HOT). For industrial usage, both the platform independent transformation specification and the platform specific execution reuse proven existing technology which is tailored and extended where needed. This allows for the stepwise introduction of model transformation technology in existing engineering and technology environments based on a classification scheme which was developed as part of this thesis. For the PIM-MT specification, the strict handling of references between engineering model elements from current model transformation specifications, which does not fit well the requirements of engineering models with temporarily violate references within the engineering workflow, was replaced by a weaker reference handling based on domain specific reference designators. An existing model transformation specification, the ATL language, has been tailored for PIM-MT specifications. For the PSM-MT desktop execution, the ATL desktop model transformation engine was reused. XSL transformations were adapted for enterprise model transformations executed on PLM servers. A PSM-MT engine for real-time IEC 61131 programmable logic controllers was developed as part of this thesis. With the results of this thesis it is now possible to build a customized engineering environment as an extension of the existing infrastructure of a machine builder, which automates the configuration of production machines by using model transformations generated from a common platform independent specification on multiple execution platforms