Contingencies-based reconfiguration of distributed factory automation

Abstract In this paper, we describe our experience using a Java-based platform to implement an emerging real-time distributed control model (IEC 61499). We provide a simple example of a control application that is distributed across two devices (Dallas Semiconductor TINI boards) and also investigate how this distributed implementation can be exploited to enhance the system's fault tolerance using a contingencies-based approach to reconfiguration.