Spec2Control: Automating PLC/DCS Control-Logic Engineering from Natural Language Requirements with LLMs - A Multi-Plant Evaluation

Distributed control systems (DCS) manage the automation for many industrial production processes (e.g., power plants, chemical refineries, steel mills). Programming the software for such systems remains a largely manual and tedious process, incurring costs of millions of dollars for extensive facilities. Large language models (LLMs) have been found helpful in generating DCS control logic, resulting in commercial copilot tools. Today, these tools are focused on textual notations, they provide limited automation, and have not been tested on large datasets with realistic test cases. We introduce Spec2Control, a highly automated LLM workflow to generate graphical control logic directly from natural language user requirements. Experiments using an open dataset with 10 control narratives and 65 complex test cases demonstrate that Spec2Control can successfully identify control strategies, can generate 98.6% of correct control strategy connections autonomously, and can save between 94-96% of human labor. Spec2Control is being integrated into commercial ABB engineering tools, but is also available as an open-source variant for independent validation.