Using Grafcet to design generic controllers

Abstract

Ways in which Grafcet is being used to help design generic controllers within the US National Bureau of Standards' Automated Manufacturing Research Facility are outlined. Grafcet is a powerful graphic language for expressing control flow and allows the expression of both parallel and sequential control logic. The rationale is described for using Grafcet as a design tool for expressing software for a generic controller. Grafcet helps the designer determine: modularization of the code, functions that can be performed in parallel, communication between parallel processes, and problems in control flow.<>