Hamied Nabizada (Institute of Automation Technology, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Holstenhofweg 85, 22043 Hamburg, Germany)
Presented at
6th AutomationML Conference: 20 Years of AutomationML
22–23 September 2026, Hochschule Pforzheim, Germany
Hosted by Hochschule Pforzheim
Type
Technical presentation — accepted abstract
Open access
© 2026 The Authors. Published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the AutomationML Conference 2026.
The full contribution will be published on this page after the conference.
Abstract
The Formalized Process Description (FPD) per VDI/VDE 3682 is a widely-used graphical notation for engineering processes, but its exchange formats are tool-specific and do not integrate with broader engineering data ecosystems. The same isolation persists even where standardized formats exist for other graphical description languages, such as PNML for Petri Nets.
AutomationML (AML) offers a standardized, extensible exchange format for engineering data, and the AutomationML Editor provides a plugin mechanism for extensions. Yet no concrete integration has bridged the gap between graphical engineering description languages and the AML ecosystem.
This presentation demonstrates how the FPD per VDI/VDE 3682 can be edited directly within the AutomationML Editor. Users can edit FPD models graphically while AML stores the complete model, including all graphical layout, positions, and connection routing. Changes in the graphical editor appear immediately in the AutomationML Editor’s instance hierarchy and vice versa. Because AML holds the full model, FPD content can be combined with other engineering data without loss. For instance, an FPD process description can be linked to the plant’s equipment structure or control system configuration within the same AML file.
The contribution comprises two openly available components: (1) an AML library covering all FPD language elements including hierarchical decomposition (currently proposed as a candidate for VDI/VDE 3682 Part 3), and (2) a graphical FPD editor integrated as an AutomationML Editor plugin. Together, they demonstrate an implementation architecture that other graphical engineering description languages can adopt, with AutomationML as the shared storage format instead of tool-specific ones.
Keywords: AutomationML Editor; Plugin Architecture; Domain-Specific Modeling; Formalized Process Description; Bidirectional Integration
Speaker
Hamied Nabizada has been a Research Associate at the Institute of Automation Technology at Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg since May 2021. His work is situated in model-based engineering, engineering data integration, and formal modeling approaches for automation engineering workflows. He is also active in the VDI/VDE-GMA Technical Committee 2.19 “Engineering and Operation of Automation Systems”, where the VDI 3682 guideline is maintained. In this presentation, he addresses the integration of graphical engineering description languages into AutomationML, using the Formalized Process Description per VDI 3682 as an example.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{nabizada2026fpd,
author = {Nabizada, Hamied},
title = {Bringing Graphical Engineering Languages to {AutomationML}: Native Process Modeling in the {AutomationML} {Editor}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 6th AutomationML Conference: 20 Years of AutomationML},
address = {Pforzheim, Germany},
month = sep,
year = {2026},
publisher = {AutomationML e.V.},
url = {https://www.automationml.org/conferences/conference-highlights/bringing-graphical-engineering-languages-to-automationml/}
}
How to Cite
H. Nabizada: “Bringing Graphical Engineering Languages to AutomationML: Native Process Modeling in the AutomationML Editor”, Proceedings of the 6th AutomationML Conference: 20 Years of AutomationML, Pforzheim, Germany, 22–23 September 2026.
This page presents the accepted abstract of a contribution to the AutomationML Conference 2026. The full text will be added after the conference. If you are an author and would like a correction, please contact office@automationml.org.