Behaviour simulation for virtual commissioning using co-simulation

Today's increasing use of Virtual Commissioning during the development process of automated manufacturing plants paired with the still increasing request towards better control program quality leads to the need of improved virtual plants with more effortless set ups. The common techniques of simulating the plant within the Virtual Commissioning do no longer fulfil these needs, new approaches have to be developed. This paper examines the behaviour simulation of the mechatronic components of such automated manufacturing plants. It is argued how such components can be modelled meeting the raising demands. A conceptual procedure of model provisioning by manufacturers in an open and standardised way is presented and the way of how these models can be used within the Virtual Commissioning is demonstrated. Beyond that the requirements towards software executing this simulations is proposed.