IEC 61131-3

IEC 61131-3 is the third part (of 8) of the open international standard IEC 61131, and was first published in December 1993 by the IEC. The current (second) edition was published in 2003.

Part 3 of IEC 61131 deals with programming languages and defines two graphical and two textual PLC programming language standards:

• Ladder diagram (LD), graphical
• Function block diagram (FBD), graphical
• Structured text (ST), textual
• Instruction list (IL), textual
• Sequential function chart (SFC), has elements to organize programs for sequential and parallel control processing.

Data Types

• Bit Strings - groups of on/off values
  • BOOL - 1 bit
  • BYTE - 8 bit
  • WORD - 16 bit
  • DWORD - 32 bit
  • LWORD - 64 bit

• INTEGER - whole numbers
  • SINT - signed short (1 byte)
  • INT - signed integer (2 byte)
  • DINT - double integer (4 byte)
  • LINT - long integer (8 byte)
  • U - Unsigned - prepend a U to the type to make it unsigned integer.

• REAL - floating point IEC 559 (IEEE)
  • REAL - (4 byte)
  • LREAL - (8 byte)

• TIME - duration for timers, processes.

• Date and Time of day:
  • DATE - calendar date
  • TIME_OF_DAY - clock time
  • DATE_AND_TIME: time and date

• STRING - character strings surrounded by single quotes.
  Escaped characters are preceded by a dollar sign.
  ($$ $' $L $N $P $R $T $xx) => ($ quote linefeed newline page(FF) return tab hex_value)
  • WSTRING - holds multi-byte strings.

• Arrays - multiple values stored in the same variable.

• Sub Ranges - puts limits on value i.e., (4-20) for current

• Derived - type derived from one of the above types.
  • TYPE - single type
  • STRUCT - composite of several variables and types.

• Generic - groups of the above types:
  • ANY
    • ANY_DERIVED
    • ANY_ELEMENTARY
    • ANY_MAGNITUDE
      • ANY_NUM - LREAL, REAL
      • ANY_INT - LINT, DINT, INT, SINT, ULINT, UDINT, UINT, USINT
    • ANY_BIT - LWORD, DWORD, WORD, BYTE, BOOL
    • ANY_STRING - STRING, WSTRING
    • ANY_DATE - DATE, TOD, DT

Variables

Variable attributes: RETAIN, CONSTANT, AT

• Global
• Direct (local)
• I/O Mapping - Input, Output, I/O
• External
• Temporary

Configuration

• Resource - Like a CPU
• Tasks - Can be multiple per CPU.
• Programs - Can be executed once, on a timer, on an event.

Program Organization Units

• Functions
  • Standard: ADD, SQRT, SIN, COS, GT, MIN, MAX, AND, OR, etc.
  • Custom
• Function Blocks
  • Standard:
  • Custom - Libraries of functions can be supplied by a vendor or third party.
• Programs

Configuration, Resources, Tasks

• Configuration - processing resources, memory for IO, execution rates, number of tasks.

External Links

• Beginners PLC Primer
  

Forums on LinkedIn

• IEC 1131 Forum Group
• TwinCAT Forum Group
• TwinCAT Service & Solution Providers Group
• TwinCAT Developers Jobs Group
  
• Business Industrial Network Group

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