Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756

Extensions of Grafcet to structure behavioural specications

Herv!e Gu!eguena,*, No.el Bouteilleb
a
!
Supelec, !
Campus de Rennes, Avenue de la Boulaie, BP 28, F35511 Cesson-Sevign e! Cedex, France
b
Schneider Electric, Division Scientique et Technique, 33 bis Avenue du Ml Jore, 92002 Nanterre Cedex, France
Received 9 July 1999; accepted 8 September 2000

Abstract

Grafcet is a powerful tool to specify sequential behaviours. However some limits of this formalism may be reached when dealing
with complex systems. The aim of this paper is to present new mechanisms that have been proposed in order to extend specication
capabilities of Grafcet and that have been taken up by the revision process of the IEC 61848 standard: enclosed step and stored
actions. The consistency of these extensions with basic formalism is shown and their usefulness is illustrated by an example.
Theoretical denitions of Grafcet and its extensions are given in Appendix A. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Grafcet; Formal specication; Sequential control; Boolean logic

1. Introduction decomposition mechanism of Statecharts. Another

Grafcet was specied in 1977 by a French working
group in order to provide a graphic tool for the
specication of sequential behaviours and especially
logic controllers. As the complexity of logic controllers
was increasing, their specication by means of state
diagrams or state tables became more and more dicult
and as the technology was changing, a formalism that
was not linked with a particular technology (unlike
Relay Ladder Logic for example) and that makes the
specication easier, was needed (David, 1995). Grafcet
was proposed to full this need and since then it has
proven to succeed in doing so.
However with the development of integration of
control, the logic behaviours to be specied became
more and more complex. This led to the consideration
that Grafcet lacked mechanisms to structure specica-
tions and to reactively interact with non-logical parts of
control (Feldman, Colombo, Schnur, & Stockel,. 1999).
Actual forcing of Grafcet (Grepa, 1985; Lesage &
Roussel, 1993) had been proposed to structure specica-
tions but it was often considered that this mechanism
was not as powerful, readable and useful as the
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-2-99-84-45-04; fax: +33-2-99-84-
45-99.
E-mail address: herve.gueguen@supelec.fr (H. Gueguen).
important point, for which Grafcet was reproached,
was the denition of its semantic by ve operating rules.
These rules have been validated by their use but also by
theoretical works that used them to derive formal
models from Grafcet specications especially for check-
ing purpose (Frachet, Lamp!eri"ere, & Faure, 1997;
Roussel & Lesage, 1996; Zaytoon, DeLoor, & Viller-
main-Lecolier, 1995; Frensel & Bruijn, 1998; Le Parc,
LHer, Scharbarg, & Marc!e, 1999). However the
consistency of extensions to the basic formalisms was
dicult to assure.
This paper aims at proposing two extensions to
Grafcet to make easier the specication of the sequential
part of the control of complex systems which are
consistent with basic Grafcet and whose semantic is
clearly dened. This last consideration was very
important and directed the denition of the extensions.
In the following, Section 2 is a presentation of the
problem of specication of logic controllers and of
Grafcet and its principles. It does not aim at giving a
comprehensive presentation of this formalism and of its
use for specication, for which readers are referred e.g.
to David (1995) or Bouteille, Brard, Colombari,
Cotaina, and Richet, (1992), but at introducing it as a
model for sequential systems, in order to show how the
following proposals of extensions are consistent with it.
The rst extension, enclosing steps, has been introduced

0967-0661/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 6 7 - 0 6 6 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 3 - 8
744 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
in order to take into account the complexity of
specication and to structure it; it is presented in
Section 3. Section 4 is concerned with the second
extension of Grafcet that is stored actions. These actions
can be used in logical specications not only to make
them simpler but also to interact with non-logical parts
of the specication. Section 5 presents an example where
these extensions are used in order to specify a structured
and unambiguous model of the control of a pallet
manipulator. Finally, Appendix A gives a general idea
of the theoretical background which is consistent with
the operational semantic of Grafcet that was previously
dened and leads to the proposed semantic of these
extensions. More details on this theoretical aspect can be
found in Guillaume (1995) and Guillemaud (1998).
2. Grafcet and logic control specication
2.1. Logic control specication
Grafcet is dened as a graphic language for the
behavioural specication of the sequential part of a
system, that is the one in which the interactions with its
environment can be considered as Boolean continuous
time signals (Fig. 1) and for which the value of outputs
at time t is linked to the value of inputs before t. Its
purpose is then to make explicit the function which links
outputs to inputs. Systems that are to be specied with
Grafcet, are systems whose outputs can change only as a
reaction to a variation of at least one input. This change
of the value of at least one input denes an input event
and distinguishes a point in time. If the outputs are to
change in reaction to an input event, they do so
simultaneously. This leads to three classes of formalisms
to specify logic controllers: continuous time formalisms,
reactive formalisms and pseudo-continuous time
formalisms.
Pseudo-continuous time formalisms are formalisms
that seem to consider continuous time inputs and
outputs but whose behaviour cannot be dened without
taking into account the fact that they will be executed at
specic instants. Examples of such formalisms are
programming languages for programmable logic con-
trollers such as sequential function charts (SFC), ladder
diagrams (LD) or functional block diagrams (FBD) as
they are dened in IEC 61131-3 standard (IEC, 1992).
The main drawbacks of these formalisms are that they
are linked with a specic technology and that they
require to include in the model considerations that are
not linked with specication but with implementation.
In reactive formalisms it is considered that, as the
system reacts at specic instants, it is only necessary to
describe its behaviour at these instants. Synchronous
languages (Benveniste & Berry, 1991) are examples of
such formalisms. As they are formal languages, speci-
Fig. 1. External view of sequential systems.
cations of controllers that are expressed in these
languages can be checked and used to automatically
generate software. However when using Esterel, all
reactions have to be explicitly specied which is not
always useful especially for combinatorial equations and
when using data ow language (Signal and Lustre), state
is not explicitly described. However synchronous
languages may be complementary to Grafcet as they
can be used to get safe software from a Grafcet
specication as shown in Le Parc et al. (1999).
Statecharts (Harel, 1987) are a graphic formalism
designed to overcome the same drawbacks of state
diagrams as Grafcet. They are a powerful formalism for
specication of reactive systems but as their semantic
(and especially the meaning of synchronism) diers
according to the tool in which they are used, the same
specication has various possible behaviours and they
may be ambiguous (Gu!eguen, 1996). A general draw-
back of reactive formalisms is that they consider discrete
time specications, so their event inputs and outputs
have to be linked with the continuous time inputs and
outputs. But these sampling units are not in the scope
of the specication so they cannot be checked; moreover
the implicit choices which are made at this level have
major eects on the specication.
Continuous time formalisms specify continuous inter-
actions among inputs and outputs as Boolean combi-
natorial equations or asynchronous sequential models.
As will be shown in the following, Grafcet is based on
this principle. Other formalisms of this class are
extensions of Petri nets (Feldman et al., 1999; Barros,
Gomes, & Steiger-Garc*ao, 1997). These formalisms are
actually very close to Grafcet, which was inspired by
Petri nets, but they lack the industrial support that was
given to Grafcet by its standardisation by the Interna-
tional Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1988.
Furthermore as they are interpreted extensions of Petri
nets they lose most of analysis capabilities of basic
autonomous nets. Message Sequence Charts or Timing
Diagrams can also be used to specify the relationship
that links outputs to inputs by showing examples of
sequences. But it is not feasible to describe all possible
input sequences and so it is dicult or impossible to
assure that the specication is complete and consistent.
2.2. Overall presentation of Grafcet
As stated above the aim of Grafcet is to make explicit
the function that links continuous time inputs to outputs
 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756 745

and more precisely changes of outputs when the values

of inputs vary dening an input event.1 The very basic
formalism to specify the function which links the
outputs to the inputs is a state machine where the value Fig. 2. Example of basic specication of sequential behaviour.
of the outputs are dened by the active state (called
situation) and the changes of situation are linked to
input events. Fig. 2 is an example of a model of the
behaviour of a system that has one input (a) and one
output (B) whose value changes at each time when the
input changes from 0 to 1. As the input is a continuous
time signal and the model describes the reactions of the
systems to input changes, each transition has to be
associated with a label where the values of the inputs
before and after the change have to be specied.2
Obviously if this formalism is very close to the essence of
the behaviours to specify, it is not very useful for the
specication of real behaviours because it leads to very
complicated models. Grafcet can then be dened as a
means to describe such behaviours in a more ecient
manner.
The main diculties to specify a sequential behaviour
with this above formalism are linked, rstly, to the Fig. 3. Example of Grafcet specication.
explosion of the number of states or transitions which is
classical with nite state machine but also to the need to
explicitly enumerate the set of input changes which are several steps. Each transition is then associated with
associated with these transitions. In order to overcome two sets of steps and a transition-condition. The rst set
these diculties two main mechanisms are introduced in is the set of its preceding steps, which are steps that must
Grafcet. The rst one is the concept of step, which be active in order that the transition could be cleared
allows parallelism in the specication and the second and that which will be deactivated by its clearing. The
one is the notion of transition-condition, and transient second one is the set of its succeeding steps, which will
evolution which allows to specify sets of events without be activated by its clearing. The transition-condition is
enumerating them. the means oered for dening the set of events that can
Basic elements of Grafcet are steps and transitions. lead to the evolution described by the transition.
Steps are used to describe the situation of sequential Actually there are two ways of describing these
systems and are represented by squares (see Fig. 3). events. The rst one is an explicit description and the
Each step can either be active or inactive and the second one is more implicit. The rst is based on the
situation is described by the set of active steps. Some denition of two operators on Boolean variables, the
steps can be particularised as initial steps (represented rising edge (denoted " ) and the falling edge (denoted
by a double square), which means that they are # ). The rising edge species changes where the value of
potentially active at the initialisation of the model. the variable is false before the change and true after,
Parallelism is introduced by explicit AND divergences whereas the falling edge species changes where the
(represented by two parallel horizontal lines) which are value of the variable is true before and false after. These
the beginning of parallel sequences, but also by the fact operators dene Boolean variable that can be used in
that, as in Petri nets, several steps in the same sequence logical expressions. For example, in Fig. 3 where a
can be active at the same instant, as for example there system with three inputs (a; b; c) is considered, the
can be several initial steps. Transitions are the elements expression " a:b3 describes the set of events where the
indicating a possible evolution of activity between input a is false before and true after the change, input b
is true after it, whatever its value is before and whatever
1
It has to be noted that there is no restriction on the number of
the value of input c is before and after, such as (a 0;
inputs whose value changes in an input event unlike classical literature b 0; c 0=a0 1; b0 1; c0 0) or (a 0; b 1; c
on Grafcet (see e.g. David, 1995). The hypothesis that only one value 1=a0 1; b0 1; c0 0), whereas the expression # a
can change has been discarded because it is not fundamental or really c::b describes the set of events where the OR operation
useful at the specication level and causes articial diculties at the
implementation level.
2 3
On the graph a is the value before the change and a0 after it, then In logical expressions the dot . is the symbol for the AND
a 0=a0 1 describes the input event which corresponds to the operation, the sign + is the symbol for the OR operation and the sign
change from 0 to 1 of the value of a. : is the symbol of negation.
746 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
on a and c is true before and false after the change and
input b is false after it, such as (a 0; b 0; c 1=
a0 0; b0 0; c0 0) or (a 1; b 1; c 0=a0 0; b0
0; c0 0). However the use of these edges operators is
not mandatory and the transition-condition can be
expressed with classical logical operators (and, or,
negation), in order to express constraints on the value
of inputs after the change only. Actually transition-
conditions can be considered as the OR operation on
two expressions the rst one, the dynamic part, is related
to explicit specication of changes with edges operators
and the static one with references to the value of inputs
after the change only. This will lead to transient
evolution as can be seen below.
The formal semantic of evolution of the active
situation of the model according to input changes can
be specied by logical equations (see Appendix A) but
fortunately it can also be expressed in an intuitive way
by ve evolution rules which are classical in the
literature on Grafcet.
Evolution rule 1: the initial situation, chosen by the
designer, is the active situation at the initial time.
Evolution rule 2: a transition is cleared when all its
immediately preceding steps are active and its transition-
condition is true.
Evolution rule 3: the clearing of a transition provokes
simultaneously the deactivation of all its immediately
preceding steps and the activation of all its immediately
succeeding steps.
Evolution rule 4: all transitions, which can be cleared
simultaneously, are simultaneously cleared.
Evolution rule 5: if as a consequence of clearing of
transitions, a step is deactivated and activated it remains
active.
Steps and transitions have been introduced to specify
the evolution of the state of the model according to
changes of inputs. In order to complete the specication
of the inputoutput relationship, actions have been
dened in order to link the value of outputs to the
situation and the present value of inputs. The classical
actions are continuous actions. Each action is associated
with a step, an output variable and an assignation
condition. An action is graphically represented by a
rectangle on the right side of the step; the name of the
assigned variable is shown inside the rectangle and the
condition above it. This condition may be left out if it
is always true. The value of an output variable is
determined by local and global considerations. Locally
at the level of each active step, actions dene a set of
logical equations where the assigned variable is equal to
the assignation condition, and variables that are not
explicitly assigned by actions are equal to false. From
the global point of view, the output value is determined
unambiguously through the OR operation on these sets
of equations that are dened by actions associated with
active steps.
Fig. 4. Possible trajectory of Grafcet of Fig. 3.
Fig. 4 shows an example of an inputs/outputs
relationship that is consistent with the Grafcet of
Fig. 3. Initially as step 0 and 1 are active output D is
assigned to true. When input b rises to true (time 1) the
transition from step 1 to steps 2 and 3 is cleared output
E is then assigned to the value of input c. The next time
input b rises to true (time 2) the transition from step 2 to
step 4 is cleared and output E is assigned to false
whereas output F is assigned to true. At time 3 input a
rises to true and step 1 is activated and output D is
assigned to true until the rising of input b at time 4. The
active steps are then steps 2, 3 and 4 and outputs are
assigned according to their actions. At time 5 input a
rises whereas input b is true, the transition from step 3 to
step 5 is then cleared, step 5 is activated and output E is
equal to c :a. At time 6 the value of input a
changes, no transition can be red and the value of
output E rises to true according to this logical
expression.
However, the previous evolution rules are not
sucient to entirely dene the behaviour of a model
expressed with Grafcet. The cases where the behaviour is
not completely specied (by these rules) are linked to
transition-conditions and activation of steps. The
question is in fact to specify the behaviour of a Grafcet
where a step is activated whereas the transition-
condition of one of its succeeding transitions is true.
This can be illustrated by the following cases in the
example of Fig. 3. When step 1 is active when input b
rises to true, step 2 is activated and the transition-
condition of the transition from step 2 to step 4 is true,
should this transition be cleared or not? What is the new
situation when step 0 is active and input a rises to true
whereas input b is true?
The answers to these questions are given by the notion
of transient evolution that takes part in Grafcets
descriptive power. This means that behaviours can be
expressed more simply with Grafcet because all transi-
tions from one situation to another do not need to be
explicitly drawn. In order to determine what the
 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756 747

situation is after an input event, the transition-condi-

tions have to be analysed.
As it has been previously mentioned these conditions
can be considered as the result of the OR operation on
two parts, the dynamic one and the static one. The
reaction of the model to an input event can then be
determined by considering that it is described by a
causal chain of atomic reactions specied by transition
clearings according to the evolution rules. The model Fig. 5. Transient evolution.
behaves as if a rst set of transitions, enabled by the
situation before the input event, was cleared leading to a
pseudo-situation enabling another set of transitions that
can be cleared if their transition-conditions are true. The
reaction stops when no more transitions can be cleared.
In this chain it is considered that the dynamic part of
transition-conditions can be true only in the rst atomic
reaction. If Fig. 5a is considered it can be seen that if
step 20 is active and input a rises from false to true
transition 1 can be cleared leading to the activation of Fig. 6. Use of step variables.
step 21 and the enabling of transition 2 which can be
cleared if b is true. This progressive way of analysing the
reaction of the Grafcet is useful, as it is simple and
intuitive. It can also be used to interpret the specica-
tion, as it is easy to nd a player algorithm to implement
it (Bierel, Douchin, & Lhoste, 1997). In fact the
behaviour which is specied by the Grafcet of Fig. 5a
is equivalent to the state machine of Fig. 5b,4 step 21 is
Fig. 7. Fundamental aspects of use of step variables and transient
not really activated in the reaction to the rising of a evolution.
when b is true, but it is used, associated with transitions
1 and 2, as a means to specify the transition from
situation 20 to situation 22. Appendix A) and the basic state machine which species
Another important possibility of making the speci- the behaviour of the Grafcet of Fig. 6 is the one in
cation in Grafcet simpler is the use of the activity of Fig. 7b where transitions can be cleared if and only if at
steps in transition-conditions. A step variable is least one input changes.
associated with each step; it represents the activity of As can be seen Grafcet is a powerful specication
the step and is true when the step is active. For example language as it allows the description of behaviours in a
in Fig. 6 the transition-condition associated to the synthetic way. This is due to parallelism, which can be
transition from step 4 to step 5 is true when the input widely used, and also due to the use of dynamic and
variable b is true and step 1 is active. The global static parts in transition-conditions (including step
behaviour of the specication is intuitively determined variables) which allows the description of implicit
by building the reaction by a chain of atomic reactions. transitions which do not require to be drawn. The
More formally the behaviour is determined by rstly following extensions to Grafcet have the same aim,
building the state machine structurally described by the namely providing means to describe complex relation-
Grafcet and then considering the problem of stability of ships between Boolean inputs and outputs of a system
situations. If the example of Fig. 6 is considered, the rst by a synthetic and clear graphic.
phase leads to the state machine of Fig. 7a. As can be
seen there is no more reference to the step variables in
transition-conditions because steps have been put 3. Enclosing steps
together into situations. If the variable b is true when
the transition from situation (0,3) to situation (1,4) is The rst extension meant to make the specication
cleared, the transition from situation (1,4) to situation easier is the enclosing step. It is inspired by Statecharts
(2,5) can be cleared without any input changes. So (Harel, 1987) and fulls the need for hierarchical
transitions and transition-conditions are modied (see structuring and pre-emption, which has been expressed
(
and has generated proposals of solutions (see e.g. Arzen
4
In the gures the notation x=- is used to denote the fact that the (1994) or Gu!eguen, Lefebvre, and Bouteille (1999)). An
value of the variable is not signicant. enclosing step is a step of a Grafcet to which at least one
748 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
Fig. 8. Graphical representation of enclosing step.
partial Grafcet, named enclosure, is associated. The
semantic of enclosing is that when the enclosing step is
active all its enclosures are active, that is, at least one of
their steps is active. Symmetrically an enclosed step
cannot be active if its enclosing step is not. An enclosing
step is a step and it must be considered as other steps in
order to determine enabled transitions, the activity of
the enclosing step alone is considered without taking
into account the activity of enclosed steps. The enclosure
is graphically symbolised by marks in the corner of the
square of the enclosing step (see e.g. step 1 in Fig. 8) and
by including the drawing of the enclosed graph in a
rectangle with the name of the enclosing step on the
upper side and, if needed, on the lower side the name of
the graph. The complete designation of an enclosed step
is determined by making up the designation of the
enclosing step, the partial graph name and the label of
the enclosed step, in accordance with the following
syntax nG
=s where n is the designation of the enclosing
step, G the name of the graph and s the label of the step.
The symbol * on the left side of some steps of enclosure
is the activation link. It indicates the enclosed steps that
are active when the enclosing step becomes active. The
general rule is that, if an enclosing step is active at least
one enclosed step must be active and this is also true for
the initial situation. That is the reason why if an
enclosing step is an initial step, there must be at least one
initial step in each enclosure, but nothing imposes that
this initial step should belong to the set of steps
indicated by the activation link.
In Fig. 8, when enclosing step 1 is active one step of
each partial Grafcet G1 and G2 is also active. If it is
considered that step 0 is active and input a becomes true
as input b remains false, step 1 becomes active and also
step 2 of G1 1G1
=2 and step 1 of G2 1G2
=1. These are used only in the reactions when the enclosing step is
two graphs evolve according to their transition-condi-
tions as long as step 1 is active. As soon as b becomes
true step 1 is deactivated and so are all active steps of G1
and G2.
This mechanism is very powerful and simple to
understand. However its semantic has to be specied
in special cases. The rst problem concerns the
behaviour of the specication when an enclosing step
is already active and one of its preceding transitions is
cleared: should the activation link be used or not? This
Fig. 9. Activation and deactivation of enclosed steps.
can be the case in Fig. 9, when steps 0 and 1 are active
and input a becomes true, is step 1/2 activated whereas
step 1/3 is already active?
Another problematic case is the one where an
enclosing step must be activated and deactivated in the
same atomic reaction. According to the evolution rules
of Grafcet, this step remains active after the reaction.
But what is the evolution of the activity of enclosed
steps? This is the case in Fig. 9 when steps 0, 1 and 1/3
are active when inputs a and b change from false to true:
which is then the active enclosed step 1/3 (no evolution)
or 1/2 (deactivation of the enclosure and use of the
activation link)? This is also the case when steps 0, 1 and
1/3 are active when inputs a, b and d change from false
to true: can then the transition from 1/3 to 1/1 be
cleared?
The answers to these questions cannot be arbitrarily
chosen as they have to be consistent with each other and
with the behaviour of Grafcet without enclosing. The
denition of enclosing which is proposed (see Appendix
A) leads to three operational rules to specify the
behaviour of enclosing and enclosed steps.
Enclosing rule 1: if a transition just preceding an
enclosing step is cleared in a reaction, activation links of
enclosure are used if and only if the enclosing step is not
active before the reaction.
Enclosing rule 2: if a transition just succeeding an
enclosing step is cleared in a reaction, enclosed steps
active before the reaction are inactive after it, if and only
if the enclosing step is inactive after the reaction.
Enclosing rule 3: if a transition just succeeding an
enclosing step is cleared in a reaction no enclosed
transition can be cleared in this reaction.
Rule 1 expresses that the activation links of enclosure
activated and are not equivalent with the clearing of
preceding transitions. This is consistent with Grafcet
where steps can be active or inactive but not active
several times. Rules 1 and 2 are consistent with the rule
of Grafcet, which say that when a step is activated and
deactivated it remains active, so if the enclosing step is
deactivated and activated it remains active and nothing
happens in the enclosure. Rule 3 is consistent with rule
2, as if a transition could be cleared, steps would be
deactivated. It is also consistent with the constraint
 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
that if an enclosed transition was cleared, its succeeding
steps should be active after the reaction, which is
impossible if the transition succeeding the enclosing step
deactivated it.
These rules give the solutions to the problems
that were previously presented in the example in
Fig. 9. In the rst case rule 1 gives the solution and
as step 1 is already active before the reaction, the
activation link is not used and after the reaction step 1/3
remains the only active step of the enclosure. The
answer to the second question is given by rules 1 and 2.
As step 1 is still active after the reaction, no step of the
enclosure is deactivated in the reaction and as the
enclosing step is active before the reaction the activation
link is not used, after the reaction step 1/3 remains
active. Finally the answer to the third question is given
by rule 3. As the transition succeeding step 1 is cleared in
the reaction, the transition from step 1/3 to 1/1 cannot
be cleared. The Grafcet reacts as if the negation of
transition-conditions of transition succeeding the en-
closing step was added by conjunction to all transition-
conditions of the enclosure.
The use of enclosing steps causes no particular
problem with transient evolutions as from users point
of view the global reaction is a chain of reactions where
each atomic reaction is determined by evolution and
enclosing rules and from a formal point of view
transient evolution is taken into account at the level of
the state machine which is at without a notion of
enclosing.
Nevertheless the use of transient evolution can be very
useful when using enclosing steps, as it allows choosing
of the situation when activating the enclosing step
according to the value of a predicate. Fig. 10 is an
example of this use of transient evolution, as step 1/1
that is indicated by the activation link is never active. It
is just used in order to dierentiate two activated steps
according to the value of input e. It can also be seen in
this example that the deactivation of the enclosing step
can be limited by the activity of enclosed step by using
step variables. In this example the transition succeeding
step 1 is enabled as soon as it is active but its transition-
condition is true when b rises from false to true or c is
true when enclosed step 1/4 is active.
Fig. 10. Advance activation and deactivation.
749
4. Stored actions and events
As explained in Section 2, standard actions in Grafcet
are continuous actions that dene the value of output
variables by means of sets of equations that depend on
the active steps. For example the sequence of Fig. 11b is
consistent with the model of Fig. 11a, if step 3 is active,
the output S is true even if step 2 is active and input a is
true. However it is sometimes useful to be able to specify
sequences, as the one in Fig. 11c, where a value is
assigned to a variable at specic instants and where the
variable retains its value between two subsequent
assignments. The actions of this type are then impulses
and their results are stored in the variable. They are
associated with events that dene the instants when they
take place and not with state as continuous actions.
This type of actions have been introduced at the
origin of Grafcet (see e.g. David, 1995) and was
associated with activation of steps. However it was not
always clear whether these actions were included in the
model or not (see e.g. Bouteille et al., 1992), what was
the relationship with continuous actions and what was
their behaviour according to the evolution of activities
of steps. Moreover it appeared that the constraint to
express event by activation of steps only, may lead to the
introduction of specic steps that makes the specica-
tion more complex. In order to remedy these drawbacks,
Guillemaud, Grave, and Gu!eguen (1998) introduced a
new representation of stored actions with an unambig-
uous semantic. This concept is based on two main
considerations. Firstly, output variables are split into
two sets, assigned variables, which are used in contin-
uous action and allocated variables, which are used in
stored actions. Secondly, stored actions are associated
with internal events which are the conjunction of a
specic situation and an input event. Four representa-
tions of internal events are dened and four symbols are
introduced in order to specify actions associated with
them. These symbols are shown in Fig. 12. Symbol (a)
Fig. 11. Continuous and stored actions.
750 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
Fig. 12. Events and triggering of stored actions.
species that the action is associated with events
resulting in the activation of the step, whereas symbol
(b) associates the action with the deactivation of the step
and symbol (c) with the clearing of the transition. As for
symbol (d), it associates the action with each occurrence
of the event when the step is active. Stored action is then
an allocation of the result of a logical operation in the
output variable at the instants dened by events. Literal
notations are also dened to make the use of events
corresponding to the activation of a step (notation
Acts), the deactivation of a step Dacs or the clearing
of a transition Clrt easier. These notations can be
used in transition-conditions or as an event when
symbol (d) is used.
The formal denition, which can be given to these
events (see Appendix A), can be interpreted at the
specication level by the following rules:
* a transition is cleared when its immediately preceding
steps are active, its transition-condition is true and no
succeeding transition of its enclosing step is cleared,
* a step is activated when it is not active and one of its
immediately preceding transitions is cleared or, if it is
associated with an activation link, when its enclosing
step is activated,
* a step is deactivated when it is active and, one of its
immediately succeeding transitions is cleared and
none of its immediately preceding ones is, or, its
enclosing step is deactivated.
These interpretations are rather intuitive and simple
to understand, however some cases may require further
analysis in order to determine relationships among
events. The example in Fig. 13 is such a case. It may be
considered that Dac0, Act1 and Clr1 are similar and
that they describe the same events. For example,
Act1 is true then Clr1 is also true because step 1
cannot be activated if the transition is not cleared, but if
transition 1 is red while step 1 is already active Clr1
is true but not Act1. It is so necessary to analyse the
possible situations of the global specication before to
conclude whether these events are really equivalent or
not. However in a sequence as the one in Fig. 13 if Dac,
Act and Clr are true as a consequence of an input event,
they are true at the very same instant. There is no order
Fig. 13. Simultaneity of events.
Fig. 14. Semantic of Boolean allocation.
relation among them and no action takes place before
the others.
As several stored actions can take place at the same
instant it may occur that the same variable may be
synchronously allocated to two opposite values. As the
specication has to remain deterministic its behaviour in
such cases has to be dened. Moreover the initial value
of allocated variables has to be specied. The formal
semantic that is proposed for stored action gives
answers to these questions. It is illustrated by Fig. 14.
The specication behaves as if all stored actions are
removed and a Grafcet as the one of Fig. 14b is
associated to each allocated variable and composed
with the specication. This Grafcet has two steps one
that continuously assigns the value true to the variable
and the other one that continuously assigns the value
false to it (as the variable cannot be used in continuous
actions of the original specication the value of the
output variable is really false when this step is active).
The transition conditions of the two transitions are the
result of the OR operation on terms that take into
account the events that trigger the stored action in the
original specication and the values that are allocated to
the variable in these actions, the transition to the step
where the variable is true is cleared when the event
occurs and the expression, which is assigned to the
variable by the associated stored action, is true and the
other transition is cleared when the event occurs and this
expression is false. For example, in Fig. 14, if transition
1(in part a) is cleared the active step (in part b) after the
transition is A0 if (b :c) is false and A1 if it is true, the
value of output A is then the value of this expression at
the instant when the event occurs and it remains the
same until a new event occurs. If two events, that
allocated opposite values to the variable, occurs at the
same instant, for example the clearing of transition 1
when (b :c) is true and the activation of step 2 when
 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
(c:d) is false, only one transition of the Grafcet of
Fig. 14b is cleared and so the value of the output
variable is changed. It can also be noticed that according
to this semantic the initial value of all allocated variables
is false.
The relationship between allocation and transient
evolutions is taken into account very easily. This is
based on the denition of the clearing of a transition,
which is, that a transition is cleared when its preceding
steps are active and its transition-condition is true. So
the expression ClrT can be expressed as the logical
AND of its transition-condition and the step variables
of its preceding steps (e.g. in Fig. 14 Clr1 X0 :E). As
activation and deactivation of steps are linked to
clearing of transition they can also be expressed by
conjunction of steps variables and transition-conditions
(e.g. in Fig. 14 Act1 :X1 :X0 :E). The behaviour of the
specication that use stored actions is then given by
rstly substituting Grafcets as the one in Fig. 14b for all
stored actions and then replacing events (Clr, Act, and
Dac) by these expressions. Transient evolution is then
studied on this new version of the specication that is a
classical one with assigned variables and transition
condition dened by input and step variables. The
practical result is that actions associated with activation
or deactivation of a step are performed even if this step
belongs to a path of transient evolution and is not really
activated.
The stored actions, which have been considered here,
are actions on Boolean variables that are entirely in the
scope of Grafcet. As the semantic of stored actions is
given by a Grafcet with continuous actions this
mechanism does not enlarge the capabilities of the basic
formalism, but it provides a means to make specica-
tions simpler because Grafcets as the one in Fig. 14b
need not be explicitly specied as they are included in
the formalism. However, from a practical point of view,
control applications not only have Boolean inputs and
outputs and are not purely sequential. In these applica-
tions the sequential part interacts with other parts by
triggering actions on non Boolean variables, such as
incrementation of counters, allocation of the result of
calculus to numeric registers or closing of the loop of
PID controllers, . . . . These actions have to be triggered
at specic instants according to changes of input
variables and the situation of the system. For example
Fig. 15. Triggering of external actions.
751
in the system in the following section, the presence of
pallets has to be memorised and queued at the instant
when the line requests it and the belt is free. If Grafcet is
used to specify the sequential part of control it is
possible to extend stored actions to specify triggering of
these actions on non-Boolean variables because the
notion of event that they introduce in Grafcet is
consistent with the need to distinguish specic instants
at which these take place.
Even if the action is simple and specied inside the
action rectangle (as on Fig. 15) it is considered as
external to the Grafcet specication and so asynchro-
nous with Grafcet evolution. This has two main
consequences. Firstly if an action is triggered at an
instant its result is not taken into account at this instant,
especially for transient evolution analysis, but later; if
the completion of the action must be awaited in order to
determine the correct behaviour of the sequential part it
has to be explicitly reported by an event (Guillemaud,
1998). Secondly, if several actions are triggered at the
same instant, even if this is the result of transient
evolution, they are synchronously triggered. Moreover,
no interpretation is associated to these action, it means
that the output of the formal model is the fact that the
triggering event of the action has occurred but the result
of this action is not taken into account. This may be
crucial when conicting allocations are made especially
in transient evolution. For example Fig. 15, what can be
assured is that if step 0 is active and input E and D are
true, the two actions will be triggered simultaneously but
neither the fact that this is a mistake nor the nal value
of A are in the scope of the model, this is left to the user.
5. Example
In order to illustrate the use of these extensions of
Grafcet, the system in Fig. 16 will be considered. In this
handling system a shuttle is used in order to take pallets
at the end of three production lines and put them on an
output belt. When a line sends a request, if the
corresponding input belt is free, its motor is switched
Fig. 16. Handling systems.
752 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756

Table 1
Inputs and outputs of the handling system

ES Operator command for emergency stop Pi Pallet sensor at end of belt i

Ref Operator command for reference mode Si Shuttle sensor at end of belt i
Man Operator command for manual mode RLi Request from line i
Auto Operator command for automatic mode Mi Motor command of belt i
PS Pallet sensor on shuttle MS Motor command of the shuttle belt
OB Output belt sensor on shuttle Backward Backward command of the shuttle
IB Input belt sensor on shuttle Forward Forward command of the shuttle

on. It is stopped when the pallet reaches the end of the

belt where it waits for the shuttle. When the shuttle is
stopped in front of the belt, the motor of this belt and
the one of the belt of the shuttle are switched on until the
pallet is on the shuttle. Then the shuttle moves
backward to the output belt where the pallet is put by
switching on the motors. If several lines ask for the
shuttle the requests are satised in order of reception by
the system. This describes the normal operating mode
but other modes such as the start, the stopping or the
emergency stopping of the system have to be taken into Fig. 17. Structure of the control of the handling system.
account.
The inputs of the control of this system are the sensors
which are at the end of input belts or on the shuttle in
order to detect the pallet and the position of the shuttle,
the request of the production lines and the operators
commands. The outputs of the control are the switching
on or o of the motor of the ve belts and the moving
backward or forward of the shuttle. They are summed
up in Table 1.
In order to deal with the queuing of request of lines, a
FIFO is used. It is external to the sequential specica-
tion as it can be seen on the global architecture of the
control specication in Fig. 17. The FIFO has three
inputs the store command, the shift one and the empty
one and two outputs the F O which is the value output Fig. 18. Specication of the method of operations.
and the valid Boolean which is false when the value of
the variable F O is not signicant e.g. when the FIFO is
empty or shifting its output value. Man, and Auto are operator commands and only one
The rst level of specication (in Fig. 18) deals with can be true at each time.
the methods of operation of the system. If step 0 is active Once this level has been specied it is possible to
the system is stopped and if step 1 is active it may work. consider the enclosure of the various steps. In Fig. 19
The transitions from one step to the other one are linked three enclosures of step 1/1 according to plant parts are
to the value of the operator command ES, which is used given (the enclosures for input belts 2 and 3 can easily be
to request for an emergency stopping of the system. inferred from the one of input belt 1). From the system
When step 1 is active the system is in one of four modes. point of view when step 1/1 is activated the FIFO is
In step 1/0 the system is stopped, in step 1/1 it is emptied and nothing else is done. From the input belt
reaching a special state in order that the control knows point of view the control aims at knowing if there is a
exactly the state of the plant, when this state is reached pallet on the belt and if there is one to put it at its end.
the variable Rea becomes true. When step 1/2 is active So when step 1/1 is activated if there is a pallet at the end
the system is in automatic mode and when step 1/3 is (P1) and the shuttle is in front of the belt (S1) the motor
active the system is in manual mode which means that (M1) is switched on until the pallet is no more on the
the operator is free to control each actuator. This is why belt ( # P1). If not, the motor is switched on until a pallet
it is compulsory to activate step 1/1 before the system is seen at the end of the belt or enough time has elapsed
can be turned back in automatic mode. The inputs Ref , to be sure that the belt is empty. From the shuttle point
 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756 753

Fig. 19. Enclosure of step 1/1.

of view, when step 1/1 is activated the motor of the belt

is switched on until a pallet is seen on the shuttle (PS) or Fig. 20. Control of the shuttle in normal mode.
enough time has elapsed to be sure that there is no pallet
on the shuttle. Then it is moved back to the output belt
(OB) and if there is one, the pallet is moved to the
output belt. Rea is a symbolic notation for the AND
operation on step variables of nal steps of each
enclosure, so it is sure that, when it is true, if there is
a pallet on a belt, it is at its end, and the shuttle is empty
near the output belt, and this at whatever the initial state
was in.
Once this initialisation of the system has been made it
is possible to switch to the automatic mode. In Fig. 20,
the enclosure of step 1/2 according to the point of view
of the shuttle is given. If there is a pending request the
corresponding step is activated and the FIFO is shifted.
The step remains active until the pallet is on the shuttle,
then step 1=2shuttle
=4 is activated until the shuttle is Fig. 21. Control of Input belt in normal mode.
empty. Enclosed steps are used in order to structure the
specication. At the rst level the sequence of aims is
shown and the enclosure of each step (for example 1=2  in order to take into account changes such as new
shuttle
=1 or 1=2shuttle
=4) is used to specify the way sensors or addition of a new line.
the plant is controlled to reach this goal.
Fig. 21 shows the control of input belt 2 in automatic
mode. When there is a request from the line (RL2) it is 6. Conclusion
stored in the FIFO and the motor of the belt is switched
on until the pallet reaches its end. When the shuttle is in In this paper, two extensions to Grafcet have been
front of the belt and its aim is to get the pallet of this presented. Enclosing steps introduce abstraction and
conveyor, the motor is switched on until the pallet is no hierarchical structuring, which are considered as a
more on the belt. powerful solution to complexity. Stored actions are
As there is no action associated with step 0 and 1/0 useful as they allow the summarisation of actions on
and actions associated with step 1/3 are just a some logical variables and also because, as they are
translation of operator commands the specication of formally dened, they unambiguously specify the
the control of the handling system is complete. As it is behaviour of events such as activation and deactivation
structured it is easily readable and as it is formal it is of steps or clearing of transition that can be used to
non-ambiguous. Simulation or verication can validate synchronise Grafcet specications to other specications
it, as it is possible to calculate the state machine that it dealing with other types of variables such as, for
describes. From this validated specication it is possible example, transformational algorithms on data. Another
to design the program of a PLC. It can be seen that, as extension of Grafcet for which these stored actions have
the specication is well structured, it is easy to modify it been mandatory is a hybrid Grafcet where dierential
754 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756
equations are associated with steps and initialisation
with events (Guillemaud & Gu!eguen, 1999).
These extensions are useful to full the needs of
specication of complex systems as it has been noticed in
various examples and they have been proposed for
industrial standardisation (IEC, 2000). Moreover as
they are formally dened, it is possible to automatically
calculate the underlying state machine from a given
specication as shown by a demonstration tool that has
been developed. Of course this state machine is not
intended to be shown to the nal user but only as an
example, to be checked out in order to assure the quality
of the specication. These formal denitions are mainly
given in Appendix A. From them it is possible to
determine the evolution and enclosing rules that have
been presented in this paper and that express the
practical semantic of Grafcet and its extensions that
are useful to users.
Future works are focused on the use of the
hierarchical structuring of the specication in order to
improve the eciency of checking algorithms and on the
transition from specication to safe control software.
Appendix A. Denition and theoretical building of the
semantic
A.1. Denitions
Denition A.1. A sequential machine is a t-upple Q; I;
O; E; Init; Val where Q is a nite set of states (named
situation according to Grafcet customs), I is the set of
input vectors whose entries are Boolean variables, O is
the set of output vectors whose entries are Boolean
variables, E : QII ! Q is the evolution function
which species the new situation according to the old
situation and two succeeding values of the input vector
with the constraint
8i 2 I 8q 2 Q Eq; i; i q A:1
which expresses that if there is no change in the input
vector the situation cannot change, Init : I ! Q is the
initialisation function which species the initial situation
according to the initial value of input vector, Val :
QI ! O is the output function.
Denition A.2. An abstract specication of a sequential
machine is S; M; V where
* S  PQ is a set of sets of situations, named steps,
such as
8q1 ; q2 2 QQ 9s 2 S such as
q1 2 s and q2 2= s or q1 2= s and q2 2 s A:2
a step is said to be active if the active situation is one
of its components. The constraint A.2 ensures that it
is always possible to determine the active situation
from the list of active steps.
* M : QII ! PS associates with each internal
event the set of steps which are left when the event
occurs with the constraints
s 2 Mq; i 1 ; i 2 ) q 2 s;
q 2 s ^ Eq; i 1 ; i 2 2= s ) s 2 Mq; i 1 ; i 2 : A:3
* V : QII ! PS associates with each internal
event the set of steps which are entered when the
event occurs with the constraints
s 2 Vq; i 1 ; i 2 ) Eq; i 1 ; i 2 2 s;
Eq; i 1 ; i 2 2 s ^ q 2= s ) s 2 Vq; i 1 ; i 2 : A:4
Denition A.3. A transition t is a directed link from the
set of steps Ut to the set of steps Dt , the set of transitions
is denoted by T
Denition A.4. A partial graph is (S 0 ,T 0 ) where S 0  S
is a set of steps T 0  T is a set of transitions such as
8t 2 T 0 Ut [ Dt  S0
Denition A.5. A step se is an enclosing step if and only
if there exists a partial graph (S0 ,T 0 ) such as
[
se s;
s2S 0
9A  S0 s:a: A 6 1 and 8s 2 A; 8q; i 1 ; i 2 2 QII;
q 2= se ^ se 2 Vq; i 1 ; i 2 , q 2= se ^ s 2 Vq; i 1 ; i 2 ;
A:5
8q; i 1 ; i 2 2 QII 8s  se ;
se 2 Mq; i 1 ; i 2 \ Vq; i 1 ; i 2
) s 2= Mq; i 1 ; i 2 [ Vq; i 1 ; i 2 : A:6
The steps which belong to the set A in (A.5) are specied
by activation link.
Denition A.6. The transition-condition of a transition t
is the characteristic predicate of the set of events
specied by (A.7), simplied by the context of the
transition
fq; i 1 ; i 2 =Ut  Mq; i 1 ; i 2 and Dt  Vq; i 1 ; i 2 g: A:7
As the activity of the situation can be expressed by
activities of steps, the characteristic predicate can be
expressed with characteristic variables of steps and input
variables. It is simplied by the context of the transition
because some pieces of information, such as the value of
characteristic variables of steps in Ut or consequences of
enclosing (A.6) may be implicit.
Denition A.7. Clrt is the characteristic predicate
of the set (A.7). Acts is the characteristic predicate
 H. Gueguen, N. Bouteille / Control Engineering Practice 9 (2001) 743756 755

of the set with

fq; i 1 ; i 2 =q 2= s and Eq; i 1 ; i 2 2 sg: A:8 E 0 q; i 1 ; i 2 Eq; i 1 ; i 2 ;
Dcts is the characteristic predicate of the set E n q; i 1 ; i 2 EE n1 q; i 1 ; i 2 ; i 2 ; i 2 :

fq; i 1 ; i 2 =q 2 s and Eq; i 1 ; i 2 2= sg A:9 Q^ Q=UE^ where UE^ is the set of situations of Q which
are not reachable by E. ^
from these denitions it is possible to express these Of course the problem is the calculus of E * q; i 1 ; i 2
predicates with characteristic variables of steps and but if it exists, its calculus is nite as the number of
input variables iterations is lower than the number of situations in Q. If
0 0 11
Y X X there exists some q; i 1 ; i 2 such that this calculus does
Clrt tct: Xsi ::@ @ Clrd AA; A:10 not nish there is a loop of transient evolution and the
si 2Ut s2Art d=s2Ud specication is not correct.

where tct is the transition-condition of t and Art is

the set of steps in which the transition is enclosed
X References
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