A modular modeling engine is provided for industrial automation applications. The module may be instantiated upon demand, such as upon receipt of annotated data for a system or process being monitored and/or controlled. The model is agnostic insomuch as little or no prior knowledge is required of the system or process. Variables, functions, and their combinations are selected and the model is refined automatically. A data structure is received for instantiation of the model, and following modeling, a similar data structure is produced. The module may be used together with other modules for caning out complex automation processing at the same or multiple levels in an automation setting.

An industrial CAD system is supplemented with features that allow a developer to easily convert a mechanical CAD model of an automation system to a dynamic digital twin capable of simulation within a simulation platform. The features allow the user to label selected elements of a mechanical CAD drawing with aspects within the CAD environment. These aspect markups label the selected mechanical elements as being specific types of industrial assets or control elements. Based on these markups, the CAD platform associates mechatronic metadata with the selected elements based on the type of aspect with which each element is labeled. This mechatronic metadata defines the behavior (e.g., movements, speeds, forces, etc.) of the selected element within the context of a virtual simulation, transforming the mechanical CAD model into a dynamic digital twin that can be exported to a simulation and testing platform.

A method of registering virtual equipment for a virtual production system includes generating a production system model and a production process model of a virtual factory on the basis of a structure database (DB), a production DB, and an operation DB, extracting a plurality of equipment behavior catalogs (EBCs) regarding a plurality of pieces of virtual equipment used in the virtual factory from an EBC repository on the basis of the production system model, generating and simulating a plurality of equipment processing models on the basis of the plurality of EBCs and the production process model, and generating an EBC set on the basis of the plurality of EBCs when a result of the simulation satisfies a predetermined criterion.

A sequence control portion of a control program is configured to execute simulation for one period to generate an execution result related to the sequence control portion. A motion control portion is configured to execute simulation for one period to generate an execution result related to the motion control portion. A control period number is then increment updated. Whether or not a resumable control period is determined, and if determined as the resumable control period, content of a resuming data buffer (828) updated in the previous control period is saved in a resuming data storage section (826).

Generating a digital representation of a process automation system on a cloud-based service platform uses assets integrated into measurement points. The method includes reading TAG information using an edge device, wherein the TAG information is provided in a character chain data type and represents the hierarchical structure of the respective asset. The method also includes transmitting the TAG information to the cloud-based service platform, and parsing the TAG information using an application, wherein a logic is used for the parsing process, and the name of the asset and the name of the measurement point in which the respective asset is integrated are extracted from the TAG information. A structure plan of the system is generated using the application having all of the system measurement points extracted from the TAG information together with all of the assets which are assigned to the measurement points and are extracted from the TAG information.