4DIAC

4DIAC (Framework for Distributed Industrial Automation and Control) is an open source and freely distributed framework specially designed for distributed industrial control and automation. It provides a free IEC 61499-compliant basis that permits creation of distributed industrial automation and control environments.

The 4DIAC project is comprised of four tools, 4DIAC-IDE (the IEC 61499 compliant engineering tool), FORTE (the IEC 61499 run-time environment), 4DIAC-LIB (the IEC 61499 function block library) and 4DIAC-Systems (the IEC 61499 example projects).

It’s a portable, highly configurable and interoperable software that has been engineered as a drop-in replacement for numerous similar commercial tools that exist in the domain of automation industry.

Mandatory example

4DIAC can be used to control a reconfigurable robotic system, also known as a modular 6-DOF robot, which uses mechatronic components and comprises of six separate joints that are actually PowerCube modules. Some special connectors are used to connect this six modules with each.

The 4DIAC-IDE is in charge of controlling the engineering of the robot’s IEC 61499 control program. In addition, please note that the implementation of the Robot HMI Application (RHA) and Robot Control Application (RCA) was born from the hardware structure of the modular 6-DOF robot. More details can be found on the project’s homepage.

Supported operating systems and availability

4DIAC is a cross-platform software written in the Java and C++ programming languages. It is designed from the ground up to support the GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The application has been successfully tested on both 64-bit and 32-bit instruction set architectures.

The program is available for download from Softoware or directly from its official website, as both a universal source archive and a pre-built binary package. FORTE is also distributed on Softoware and it’s available for download only as a universal source package.

What is new in this release:

• Syntax highlighting, code completion and just-in-time error checking in the Structured Text algorithm editor
• Better visualization of currently monitored systems
• Better control over the FORTE boot-file creation process
• New example project consisting of the automatic control of a simulated mechanical press
• An official version for Mac OS

What is new in version 1.7.2:

• Syntax highlighting, code completion and just-in-time error checking in the Structured Text algorithm editor
• Better visualization of currently monitored systems
• Better control over the FORTE boot-file creation process
• New example project consisting of the automatic control of a simulated mechanical press
• An official version for Mac OS

What is new in version 1.7.1:

• Syntax highlighting, code completion and just-in-time error checking in the Structured Text algorithm editor
• Better visualization of currently monitored systems
• Better control over the FORTE boot-file creation process
• New example project consisting of the automatic control of a simulated mechanical press
• An official version for Mac OS

What is new in version 1.7.0:

• Syntax highlighting, code completion and just-in-time error checking in the Structured Text algorithm editor
• Better visualization of currently monitored systems
• Better control over the FORTE boot-file creation process
• New example project consisting of the automatic control of a simulated mechanical press
• An official version for Mac OS

What is new in version 1.6.2:

• Syntax highlighting, code completion and just-in-time error checking in the Structured Text algorithm editor
• Better visualization of currently monitored systems
• Better control over the FORTE boot-file creation process
• New example project consisting of the automatic control of a simulated mechanical press
• An official version for Mac OS

What is new in version 1.5.0 RC2:

• This second release candidate improves syntax highlighting in the new ST editor, fixes several issues in the ECC and in the application editor, and adds more tests and automatic test coverage assessment in FORTE.

What is new in version 1.5.0 RC1:

• The main new features of this preview release are a new example system, improved management of the monitored systems, syntax highlighting in ST algorithm editors, improved boot-file creation, and many bugfixes, increasing the overall stability.

What is new in version 1.4.2:

• This release adds a set of bugfixes to 4DIAC-IDE (6) and FORTE (4).

What is new in version 1.4.1:

• This release provides a set of bugfixes to 4DIAC-IDE (10) and FORTE (2).

What is new in version 1.4:

• The main contribution of this release is the improvement of the overall stability and usability of 4DIAC-IDE and FORTE.
• All in all, this release incorporates the fixes and implementations of more than 84 issues.
• Additionally, it enhances support for the generic data types (i.e., ANY_INT, ANY_ELEMENTARY, etc.).
• The biggest news, though, is that the 4DIAC framework now supports all of the IEC 61131-3 Functions and Function Blocks as IEC 61499 Function Blocks.
• Of course, the IEC 61131-3 Functions are also available for use in Structured Text algorithms.

What is new in version 1.3.3:

• A critical memory error was found in the FORTE runtime, prompting this third maintenance release for 1.3 providing a set of bugfixes to 4DIAC-IDE (5) and FORTE (2).

What is new in version 1.3.2:

• This is the the second maintenance release for 1.3, providing a set of bugfixes to 4DIAC-IDE (5) and FORTE (2).

What is new in version 1.3.1:

• This first maintenance release for 4DIAC 1.3 provides a large set of bugfixes to 4DIAC-IDE (12) and FORTE (2).

Requirements:

• Eclipse
• Java 2 Standard Edition Runtime Environment