Development and execution of POU-oriented performance tests for IEC 61131-3 control software

Abstract

Due to performing complex and crucial tasks in industry, the control software should be created in a way ensuring possibly the highest quality. It can be increased by modeling, standardized implementation, and precise testing. The latter should verify not only functional requirements, but also nonfunctional, such as performance. In the paper, a concept of agile POU-oriented performance testing is proposed, which is dedicated to the IEC 61131-3 standard. The approach allows to measure and analyze execution times of particular Program Organization Units. The concept supports multiple target platforms and allows to take performance into account during early development stages, as well as to perform regression testing. The proposed process consists of a few stages, namely modeling (using SysML diagrams), implementation (in a dedicated test definition language), and execution (by a dedicated testing framework). The approach has been introduced into the CPDev engineering environment for programming industrial controllers.