Using high-level models for modeling industrial machines in a virtual environment

The work presented in this paper deals with a platform independent model formalism for designing virtual reality applications. In our approach, we focused on industrial machine simulators design. The structure of an industrial machine model is composed by “Virtual Components” which corresponds to the physical industrial components of the machine and a control part which corresponds to the functional specification of the machine. Each virtual component is modeled by VRML model for geometry and by hybrid automata (HA) for behavior. The control part is modeled by Sequential Function Charts (SFC), as it is the case in the majority of industrial machines. Those SFC are translated to HA and composed with the virtual components HA. The whole HA model of the machine is then implemented in the generic virtual environment “OpenMASK” by specific software translation tools which was developed previously. This method makes virtual prototyping accessible by the specialists in the domain of industrial machine design domain In this paper, we describe the high level modeling method putting the accent on the coupling between the control part and the process and then we apply it in the case of an assembly machine.