Control in real time - from the DIN rail

Industry 4.0 and Ethernet-based fieldbus protocols are not the first to bring real-time solutions into focus. In many industries, there has been a demand for real-time capable control and automation systems for decades. It applies in particular to decentralized systems for a predominantly heterogeneous automation infrastructure, which can often only be answered with customer-specific developments based on real-time operating systems.

As early as the 1980s, sectors such as the automotive and aerospace industries, mechanical engineering, power utilities, but also biotechnology companies and the pharmaceutical industry were demanding alternatives to non-deterministic, linear PLC programming.
These could already be created at that time by real-time computers with an open computer architecture and bus systems such as VMEbus, PMC/PCI. Today, compact real-time automation systems are capable of performing fast control and regulation tasks in a decentralized manner. They are characterized by current, powerful processors, an open communication level by means of standardized protocols and the use of real-time operating systems such as QNX, VxWorks or OS-9.