On September 9 and 10, 2025, the international who’s who of the universal automation community gathered at the University of Porto (Universidade do Porto), as various events on IEC standard 61499 were on the agenda of this year’s 30th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA). One of the seven conference workshops held on the first day, for example, was dedicated to the topic: “Advancing Industrial Automation: Best Practices and Innovations with IEC 61499”, which focused on engineering practices for IEC 61499, vendor-independent commissioning, plug & produce, low-code engineering, and the open-source framework Eclipse 4diac based on IEC 61499. The technology company Kongsberg Maritime also provided insight into how it automates safety-critical processes in Norwegian offshore facilities using IEC 61499.
The workshop was organized by Prof. Alois Zoitl (LIT Cyber-Physical Systems Lab at Johannes Kepler University Linz), Prof. Valeriy Vyatkin (LTU and Aalto University Finland), Dr. Franco Cavadini (Chief Technical Officer at Gr3n), and Inna Arkhipova (Academic Program Manager at UniversalAutomation.Org). The university professors, Zoitl and Vyatkin, are considered two of the most influential minds in the field of IEC 61499, and Franco Cavadini works for a Swiss start-up, which has opted for an automation approach based on IEC 61499 for its innovative plastic recycling process. Inna Arkhipova is responsible for supporting and connecting members from the academic community at UniversalAutomation.Org.
Industry Forum bringing academia and industry together
In addition to the workshop on the first day of the ETFA conference, the second day also featured a session of the Industry Forum dedicated entirely to vendor-independent automation. Moderated by Šejla Trakić and Franco Cavadini, the two panel sessions were attended by representatives from various industrial sectors who have already successfully worked with IEC 61499 in practice. Among them were system integrators such as Stephen Maltby from Platinum (UK) and Zakaria Bencherki from Armony System (France). Representatives from renowned international industrial companies were also in attendance, including from Stratus, Yokogawa, and Novo Nordisk. The first panel was titled “IEC 61499 in Practice: Experience Exchange about Implementing the Technology,” while the second panel was titled “Infrastructural control architecture: Bridging OT and IT through Open Standards, Modular Hardware, and IEC 61499-Enabled Control”.
“As with the Industry Forum session we co-organized, at UAO we also believe it is very important to bring academia and industry together in our community,” emphasizes Šejla Trakić, Member Success Manager at UAO. “Both sides can benefit enormously from each other. Moreover, these universities are also training the engineers of tomorrow. And we are naturally delighted that more and more institutions are deciding to teach an open and IT-oriented automation approach in accordance with IEC 61499.”
Runtime Execution Engine as the basis for vendor-independent automation
UniversalAutomation.Org provides an independent automation layer for OT components in the form of a shared source runtime execution engine with no license fees that can be used for automation in accordance with IEC 61499 specifications. With this approach, which was first formulated in 2005, the control logic does not depend on a single component; it can be freely distributed – independent of the vendor – to all devices in a system equipped with a CPU. Because the function blocks in IEC 61499 also operate independently of global variables, the software modules stored in vendor-neutral function libraries can be reused much more easily and independently.
UAO’s Runtime Execution Engine enables this type of automation by fundamentally decoupling the proprietary link between automation hardware and software. The advantage of this approach for users is that code only needs to be created once and can then be reused across multiple providers and installed on various hardware components in a decentralized manner. It also renders hardware and software lifecycles completely independent of each other, making it easier to manage issues such as integration and migration. UniversalAutomation.Org has recently grown to include more than 110 member companies.
Automation for the next generation
In addition to manufacturers, system integrators, machine builders and the manufacturing industry, universities and other teaching and research institutions account for a significant proportion of UAO members. Interested institutions are also able to obtain special teaching materials from the organization for creating seminars and lectures on the topic of IEC 61499.
“Nowadays, university students are profoundly influenced by the rapid technological developments happening around us,” says Inna Arkhipova, University Program Manager at UAO. “To many, today’s automation seems like something from a cherished past. For example, the fact that freedom in engineering is still restricted by proprietary systems is difficult for many to understand. This makes vendor-independent automation based on IT logic all the more attractive and in keeping with the times, as it enables the implementation of significantly more resource-efficient and adaptable systems.”
You can find more information about the workshop here.
You can find more information about the Industry Forum here.
You can find further general information about UniversalAutomation.Org and its members here.
Captions:
Workshop: Valeriy Vyatkin (LTU and Aalto University Finland), Alois Zoitl (Johannes Kepler University Linz), Inna Arkhipova (UAO) and Franco Cavadini (Gr3n) (from left to right) organised a workshop.
Industry Forum: Stephen Maltby (Platinum), Flemming Nørgaard Andersson (Novo Nordisk), Zakaria Bencherki (Armony System), Federico Fumagalli (J&W) and Mikael Maasalo (AFRY) (from left to right) discuss during the Industry Forum.
