Estimation, measurement and improvement of distributed automation applications performance

This paper addresses the problem of how to estimate performance of distributed IEC 61499 automation systems and optionally, how to improve end-to-end response times in general. In order to make the process of distributed automation system design and deployment more streamlined, a software tool which could reliably estimate end-to-end response times within a system offline would be very beneficial. Focusing on possibilities to develop such a tool, there is a need for researching ways to determine end-to-end response times within distributed IEC 61499 systems. Based on the findings a model is created which can be used in the future software tool. The tool can either be a stand-alone application or as a plugin to some existing automation software development environment. This tool could be used already in the software development phase in order to compensate for the delays occurring in the physical system and thus, the actual work resulting from fine tuning while deploying the system could be minimized.