Multilingual programming

When it comes to programming, developers have complete freedom in terms of programming languages. Steffen Winkler, Sales Manager of the Automation and Electrification Solutions business unit at Bosch Rexroth, explains: "The standardized PLC and CNC languages remain important, but they are not enough. Machine manufacturers need to be able to implement their know-how in the widely used high-level and Internet languages. In the future, they will combine machine, process and communication apps, similar to apps on a smartphone, to suit individual customers and provide additional ones during the life cycle. This will change the entire engineering process. Machine manufacturers will be able to use development platforms such as GitHub, where millions of users program and provide functions in C languages, Python, Blockly and many other languages. A central prerequisite for this is a central nervous system in the control system that ensures the exchange of real-time and non-real-time data for all apps."

ctrlX Automation is based on a new generation of multicore processors that provide sufficient computing power for almost all automation tasks. This high-performance CPU can be fully integrated into embedded PCs (ctrlX CORE), industrial PCs (ctrlX IPC) or directly into drives (ctrlX DRIVE). Future CPU upgrades do not require any software adaptations. The software runs independently of the hardware in all topologies. Bosch Rexroth guarantees serviceability for all ctrlX Automation components for at least 20 years - including the CPUs currently in use.

Exchange in real time

As the central architectural element for communication between any apps, the platform offers a data layer as the central nervous system for the exchange of all real-time and non-real-time data - even across multiple controllers. The transparency of the data layer, which can be accessed with authorization, is the key to the use of future technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Initially, the new automation platform will be aimed specifically at the areas of handling and robotics, with a view to later expanding into other areas of production. Existing components can be easily integrated. A web-based configuration tool will help with the design of new systems, which not only helps with the layout of the system, but also automatically takes factors such as the power consumption of drives into account. dsc