Automation products have long lifetimes that are measured in decades and not years. So advances in technology – particularly PC technology – may mean that automation products and applications have to change, sometimes painfully.  

  As industrial automation systems become increasingly complex, software development time and engineering expenses can exceed all other development hurtles. PLCopen offers standard, open motion control function blocks based on the IEC 61131 languages to create efficient, flexible code that is vendor- and product-independent.

  Several companies, including Advantech, have produced a powerful and useful hybrid of the programmable controller and the PC. This device is generally called a PAC, or programmable automation controller.

  Download this white paper to increase your understanding of the elements of risk management and the methodology of a safety investment analysis, and how safety engineers or a risk management professional can present the financial justification to help make operations safer and reduce both workplace injuries and insurance costs.

  Network hosts typically have to poll the I/O server repeatedly in order to obtain remote sensor data over an Ethernet network. This white paper presents a new approach to IP-based data acquisition and control that is dramatically faster, more flexible, easier to configure, and easier to program for.

  Since the mid-1990s, Ethernet networks have become ubiquitous. They are used in offices, in homes, in workplaces, in building automation, and with increasing dominance, not just frequency, on the factory floor. In this whitepaper, Paul Wacker of Advantech Corporation explores Gigabit Ethernet, and what the future holds.