This work is the result of our systematic analysis of technical standards in the field of industrial automation and control systems (IACS) and industrial internet of things (IIoT), which served us to identify the elements and concepts required to describe the standards in a machine-processable form. Our analysis shows that the standards often overlap with respect to covered topics, but also comprise standard-specific concepts.
The resulting ontology serves as the basis to represent technical standards in a machine readable way. It provides elements to define publications, their provisions, their dependencies and possible constraints, among other constructs. This ontology is based on three technical standars, namely the IEC 62443 4-2, ETSI 303645 and the more general NIST Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.
Therefore, besides providing the schematic elements, it also considers system related concepts to describe system solutions, their components, etc. Making it possible to define not only project or system specific information but also project independent information. Hence, promoting a more robust domain to simplify engineering design tasks.