CAEX is a neutral data format that allows storage of hierarchical object information, e.g. the hierarchical architecture of a plant. On a certain abstraction level, a plant consists in modules or components that are interconnected. CAEX allows storage of those modules or components by means of objects. Object oriented concepts as encapsulation, classes, class libraries, instances, instance hierarchies, inheritance, relations, attributes and interfaces are explicitly supported. CAEX bases on XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

 and is defined as XML schema

XML schema

An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself...

 (xsd file). The original intention of developing CAEX was the industrial lack of a common and established data exchange between process engineering tools and process control engineering tools. However, CAEX can be applied to all types of static object information, e.g. plant topologies, document topologies, product topologies, petri nets, but also for non technical applications like phylogenetic trees.

Technical features

CAEX combines model-techniques with meta-model-techniques. The model-techniques allow storage of object information that is common across different vendors, e.g. objects, attributes, interfaces, hierarchies, references, libraries and classes. The meta-model-techniques allow a flexible definition of object information that is usually individual and application dependent, e.g. certain attribute names, specific classes or object catalogues. CAEX is mainly a static data format and not designed for storage of dynamic information. However, it is possible to define special classes for the description of dynamic behaviour.

History

The CAEX development started in 2002 as a university project at the RWTH Aachen

RWTH Aachen

RWTH Aachen University is a research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with roughly 33,000 students enrolled in 101 study programs....

 at the chair of process control engineering (Prof. U. Epple) with the industrial support of the ABB corporate research Ladenburg. In 2003, the first CAEX proposal has been proposed to the German standardization committee DKE

Deutsche Kommission Elektrotechnik Elektronik Informationstechnik im DIN und VDE

Deutsche Kommission Elektrotechnik Elektronik Informationstechnik im DIN und VDE , abbreviated DKE, is the German organisation responsible for the elaboration of standards and safety specifications in the areas of electrical engineering, electronics and information technologies...

 K941 (TC65, WG12). In 2004, CAEX has been published as part of the DIN

Deutsches Institut für Normung

is the German national organization for standardization and is that country's ISO member body. DIN is a Registered German Association headquartered in Berlin...

 V 44366. After a positive international voting, CAEX has been published as part of the IEC

International Electrotechnical Commission

The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"...

 PAS 62424 in May 2005. In 2007, the next IEC standardization step has successfully been passed, it is published as IEC 62424 CDV (committee draft for voting). On 12 August 2008, the final version of IEC 62424 (Ed. 1.0) has been published.

Partners

- CAEX has been developed within the DKE K 941 together with major industrial partners of the process industry; Bayer

Bayer

Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen , Germany in 1863. It is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and well known for its original brand of aspirin.-History:...

, BASF

BASF

BASF SE is the largest chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Germany. BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik . Today, the four letters are a registered trademark and the company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock...

, Linde

The Linde Group

The Linde Group, registered as Linde AG is an international industrial gases and engineering company founded in Germany in 1879. Linde shares are traded on all the German stock exchanges and also in Zürich, and the Linde share price is included in the DAX 30 index...

, Uhde, Wacker, Intergraph

Intergraph

Intergraph Corporation is an American software development and services company. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the world. Intergraph operates through two divisions: Process, Power & Marine and Security,...

, Innotec, ABB and the RWTH Aachen

RWTH Aachen

RWTH Aachen University is a research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with roughly 33,000 students enrolled in 101 study programs....

.

- In the manufacturing automation area, CAEX serves as top level data format for the new neutral data exchange format AutomationML

AutomationML

AutomationML is a neutral data format based on XML for the storage and exchange of plant engineering information, which is provided as open standard. Goal of AutomationML is to interconnect the heterogeneous tool landscape of modern engineering tools in their different disciplines, e.g...

 driven by Daimler, Siemens

Siemens

Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...

, KUKA

KUKA

KUKA is a leading German producer of industrial robots for a variety of industries - from automotive and fabricated metals to food and plastics...

, Rockwell

Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation is a global provider of industrial automation, power, control and information solutions. Brands in industrial automation include Allen-Bradley and Rockwell Software....

 and ABB .

Applications

CAEX is currently applied in the areas of process engineering, process control engineering, oil & gas industry and in the manufacturing automation engineering.
The following research institutes are especially involved in the investigation of CAEX (Status 2007).

• RWTH Aachen
• HSU Hamburg
• TU Dresden
• Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing (IITB)
• Imperial College London
• AutomationML consortium

Publications

Wissensbasierte Unterstützung von HAZOP-Studien auf der Grundlage eines CAEX-Anlagenmodells

Objektorientierte Beschreibung einer Chemieanlage - Möglichkeiten und Vorteile

Using the Process Schematic in Plant-wide Disturbance Analysis

IEC PAS 62424 - Grafische Darstellung von PLT-Aufgaben und Datenaustausch zu Engineering-Systemen

An Intelligent Multi Agent System for Integrated Control & Asset Management of Petroleum Production Facilities

IEC PAS 62424, Präsentation auf der Hannovermesse 2007

CAEX 2.0 – Überblick über neue Entwicklungen, 5. Symposium "Informationstechnologien für Entwicklung und Produktion in der Verfahrenstechnik"