Moqui evaluation for Industrial Automation: PLC, System Simulation, and Integration

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Hi,
I would like to share some open-source projects aimed at evaluating Moqui’s potential in the context of Industrial Automation, Mathematical Modeling, and System Simulation.

The repositories are available here:

:link: Moqui Automation Organization

Context and Flow

Interfacing an ERP framework with the factory floor often involves control systems theory.

The proposed architecture explores this general flow:

System Simulation & Math Modeling → Logic Execution → PLC Communication.

System Simulation and Data Model

A key focus of this work is the simulation of the physical systems to be controlled.

Testing the logic against a simulated machine model is a standard and safe step before any physical deployment.

To support this, I drafted some specific components:

  • Data Model: I added mantle-udm extensions with experimental entities for math models and devices (MathEntities.xml & DeviceEntities.xml).

  • Control Logic and Simulation: I provided moqui-jep (Java Embedded Python).

While Python’s ecosystem is incredibly useful for simulating complex systems and I personally rely on it, it is proposed purely as an option.

It is not a strict requirement, and standard Groovy/Java can still be used.

Hardware Communication and PLC

For the communication with the machines (whether simulated or physical), I explored a few approaches (moqui-plc4j, moqui-plc, and Camel):

  • Integration Options: Moqui can communicate via Apache PLC4X. Alternatively, the provided PLC code includes sections to publish data via MQTT to a broker or via OPC UA.

On the software side, this data can be consumed using moqui-camel or a standalone Apache Camel on Quarkus application.

  • A Framework for PLCs: The provided PLC source code is intended to be a sort of “Moqui framework for PLCs”.

The goal is to offer a reusable foundation to avoid reinventing the wheel for every new machine.

It is written in standard IEC 61131-3 with the intention of making it portable to any compliant PLC brand.

  • Robotics: The code is structured to support robotics, utilizing the PLCOpen Motion control library (Part 1, 2, and 4).

  • Reference IDE: Please note that Codesys was used purely as a reference platform because its IDE is available as a free download for testing, but the code is meant to be transferable to other standard PLC platforms.

I invite anyone interested in Industry 4.0 or IoT to take a look at the repositories.

Best regards,
Igor Gallingani

1 Like
2

Hey Igor It’s good to hear from you!

Thanks for your post. If you would like, we can see how much of this can go into the Moqui org. The main thing that is needed is minimal changes to framework and mantle-udm so that the features are opt in for the manufacturing and automation use case.

Feel free to email me and we can setup a call.

I also don’t see any repositories on the moqui-automation github page. Are they public?

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