Technical failures not considered during plant engineering result in a reduced productiveness due to unscheduled system downtimes. Dynamic reconfiguration of field control software offers an alternative in contrast to the traditional way of immediate maintenance stops. In this contribution, a novel agent-based architecture for handling unforeseen failures is proposed. The reconfigurability of the field control software is achieved by implementing realtime agents in a IEC 61131-3 compliant language. The flexibility of the control software the agents rely on is achieved by applying the service-oriented paradigm to the field level control functionality. The realization of the concept on a laboratory plant with standard automation components is described.     «

Technical failures not considered during plant engineering result in a reduced productiveness due to unscheduled system downtimes. Dynamic reconfiguration of field control software offers an alternative in contrast to the traditional way of immediate maintenance stops. In this contribution, a novel agent-based architecture for handling unforeseen failures is proposed. The reconfigurability of the field control software is achieved by implementing realtime agents in a IEC 61131-3 compliant langua...     »