Open Access

Cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) are formed by a flexible and heterogeneous system architecture. Therefore, a comprehensive automation software design requires methods for creating and managing automation software variants. In scope of CPPS, existing approaches do not consider the design of variants combined with software structuring principles. In addition, information from Asset Administration Shells (AAS) is not used sufficiently. Therefore, we propose a novel approach for a comprehensive design of automation software variants based on a domain-specific language (DSL). Thereby, software structuring is provided by the use of several layers with different levels of abstraction. Automation software variants are defined on the mentioned abstraction layers using specific language elements. In order to determine appropriate variants of control programs for particular automation systems, information from AAS is used. Finally, the advantages of the proposed approach are demonstrated in the field of process engineering.