A design pattern for model based software development for automatic machinery

The paper presents the results of the application of object-oriented modeling techniques to the control software design of complex manufacturing systems, with particular focus on automatic machineries for production and packaging of food stuff, as milk, snacks, etc. In this application fields there are some peculiar problems to tackle in order to develop effective software control solutions, as for example the exception handling caused by product or packaging material jam, the Human Machine Interface, the recipe production management etc. The goal of this paper is to introduce design patterns developed in the framework of UML applied to the development of automatic machineries software, aiming to define a set of predefined modeling solutions to some class of recurrent design problems. © 2009 IFAC.