IEC 61131-3
IEC 61131-3 is the third part (of 10) of the international standard IEC 61131 for programmable logic controllers. It was first published in December 1993 by the IEC; the current (fourth) edition was published in May 2025.
Part 3 of IEC 61131 deals with basic software architecture and programming languages of the control program within PLC. It defines three graphical and two textual programming language standards:
- Ladder diagram (LD), graphical
- Function block diagram (FBD), graphical
- Structured text (ST), textual
- Instruction list (IL), textual deprecated. Per IEC 61131-3-2025, chapter 7.2 Instruction List (IL) is no longer included in Edition 4. Thus, IL (AWL) is no longer part of IEC 61131-3.
- Sequential function chart (SFC), has elements to organize programs for sequential and parallel control processing, graphical.