Implementing Functional Safety with the Beckhoff TwinSAFE SISTEMA Library
As industrial automation continues to evolve, the importance of safety, reliability, and flexibility will only continue to grow. The Beckhoff Sistema Library is well-positioned to meet these challenges, providing a robust and user-friendly platform for developing safety-related control systems.
Import to SISTEMA: Open the SISTEMA software, go to the "Libraries" menu, and select "Import." Point the software to the downloaded Beckhoff file.
Open the Beckhoff library in your sidebar, locate your TwinSAFE Logic controller (such as the EL6910), and drag it into the Logic block.
EN ISO 13849-1 quantifies safety using a metric known as the Performance Level (PL), which ranges from PL a (lowest risk reduction) to PL e (highest risk reduction). Determining whether a system meets the required PL requires complex mathematical evaluation of several parameters: MTTFdcap M cap T cap T cap F sub d : Mean time to dangerous failure.
Because the library blocks are pre-certified, SISTEMA instantly recognizes them. It pulls in the failure probabilities, the diagnostic coverage, and the architectural constraints. What used to be days of data entry becomes a near-instantaneous validation.
FB_SynchronizeData sends the entire struct every cycle. Keep your ST_CriticalProcessData small.
What are you aiming to achieve for your safety function?
Click on and browse to the extracted Beckhoff .slb or .ssm file.
Enter the . This specialized library, integrated into the TwinCAT 3 environment, represents a paradigm shift. It brings the federally recognized SISTEMA (Safety Integrity Software Tool for the Evaluation of Machine Applications) calculation core directly into the PLC programming workflow.
Before diving into the Beckhoff-specific library, it is vital to understand the underlying framework. ISO 13849-1 quantifies the reliability of safety-related parts of control systems (SRP/CS) using a metric called Performance Level (PL), which ranges from PL a (lowest) to PL e (highest).
Navigate to the section or search directly for "SISTEMA".
Beckhoff provides a specialized library of function blocks—pre-written code modules—that are delivered with their SISTEMA parameter files. This creates a seamless handshake between the safety logic (the code) and the safety certification (the math).
The information in this article is a starting point. The most comprehensive and up-to-date details are always found in the official Beckhoff documentation, which are the definitive sources for any professional automation task.
Navigate to > Local Library Manager (or click the Library icon).