Synthesizing Executable PLC Code for Robots from Scenario-Based GR(1) Specifications

Robots are found in most, if not all, modern production facilities and they increasingly enter other domains, e.g., health care. Robots participate in complex processes and often need to cooperate with other robots to fulfill their goals. They must react to a variety of events, both external, e.g., user inputs, and internal, i.e., actions of other components or robots in the system. Designing such a system, in particular developing the software for the robots contained in it, is a difficult and error-prone task. We developed a formal scenario-based modeling method which supports engineers in this task. Using short, intuitive scenarios engineers can express requirements, desired behavior, and assumptions made about the system’s environment. These models can be created early in the design process and enable simulation as well as an automated formal analysis of the system and its components. Scenario-based models can drive the execution at runtime or can be used to generate executable code, e.g., programmable logic controller code. In this paper we describe how to use our scenario-based approach to not only improve the quality of a system through formal methods, but also how to reduce the manual implementation effort by generating executable PLC code.