ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates several software design paradigms for the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61499 standard and discusses questions such as how and where to apply these paradigms. The IEC 61499 standard is intended to provide system level design methodology for distributed automation systems. In an IEC 61499 design, elements are grouped into two essential components, namely modularity and communication. From a software design perspective, paradigms are models for implementing a group of applications sharing common properties. The chapter introduces essential elements of function block design and describes three major design paradigms: the object-oriented programming paradigm, the component-based design paradigm and the service-oriented architecture paradigm. The chapter illustrates these paradigms using an airport baggage handling system example, and provides comparison and discussion for these paradigms. The object-oriented paradigm is applied to the IEC 61499 standard in several applications such as airport baggage handling systems, process control, and smart grid and building automation systems.
