Second Case Study: The Hermes Protocol

Abstract

The increasing complexity and criticality of industrial automation systems, embodied by the concept of Industry 4.0, which bring together concepts like Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, call for more formality in specifying the technology standards underlying these systems. This chapter presents a formal model of an Industry 4.0 machine-2-machine communication protocol, Hermes, used in specifying electronic board transfers in an assembly line. Our analysis of the formal specification reveals that, despite the robustness of the protocol, many testing scenarios have been ignored in the protocol standard and in particular, scenarios that include simultaneous machine errors. Therefore, the analysis presented here paves the way for a better-informed testing strategy in Industry 4.0 systems that implement the protocol. This chapter represents the second case study of the current book.