Simulation is one of the basic fields of research interest inside GENIA. Our goal is to achieve a generic and open industrial process simulator with which you can develop new objects behaviors without needing to program a line of code. To achieve that goal it will be necessary to use known techniques as described in Diseño e Implementación de un Simulador de Procesos Industriales or to develop some new others. It is basic to choose the simulation language that better helps to develop the project. You can see a comparison between several simulation languages and architecture characteristics in the investigation project Nuevas Tendencias en Simulación (New Tendencies in Simulation) .The most powerful solution is the simulation architecture HLA: High Level Architecture.

The programming of automatisms is a very important task. From our point of view, we have to bet on methodologies that make the easy and standard the programming tasks. The most important one at the moment is GRAFCET. In the article Generación de Expresiones Lógicas de un Programa de Control Basado en GRAFCET several problems that you can find when you try to generate a control program from a GRAFCET are analyzed. The main standardization effort in industrial control programming is the international standard IEC 1131-3 (UNE/EN 61131-3). The standard includes the definition of Sequential Function Chart (SFC) -equivalent to GRAFCET-, used to structure the internal organization of a program, and four inter-operable languages: Instruction List (IL), Ladder Diagram (LD), Function Block Diagram (FBD) and Structured Text (ST). Via decomposition into logical elements, modularization and modern software techniques, each program is structured, increasing its re-usability, reducing errors and increasing programming and user efficiency. Read more about this standard in the article: IEC 1131-3: a standard programming resource.

Domotics is another field of interest for us. We are investigating new domotics solutions using generic automatisms that are cheaper than the ones being used nowadays. Our interest is centered in implementing tools for helping home designers to develop these new technologies, as described in the following article: Methodology for Selection and Development of Domotics Computer Aid Projects.

We are very worried about teaching. We want to improve our students skills. So we have developed several software tools to help us giving practical classes. This way we supply the laboratories with cheap tools that make it possible for all the students to use the same tools. We have published two articles about how to organize the practical classes using hardware already in the labs and new software to complement them. Both articles are written in Spanish: Herramientas Software para ayuda en el Diseño y Desarrollo de Proyectos de Automatización (Software Tools for helping to Design and Develop Automation Projects) and Experiencias Docentes en Automatización Industrial Mediante el uso de Herramientas Software para Simulación, Control y Supervisión de Procesos (Teaching Experiences in Industrial Automation using Software Tools for Simulation, Control and Process Supervision).