Enabling federated control by developing a distributed control application platform

A recently completed collaboration project with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has resulted in a platform for federated control, intended to be deployed in next generation smart equipment or process control. This prototype platform, tentatively named DCAP (distributed control application platform) is designed for developing component-based control applications for federated embedded control systems. Component-based development has been the driving force throughout the development stage of the prototype. Components, distributed in the platform are required to support the skeleton, needed for e.g. remotely enabling or disabling modules, like device drivers (to cater for different hardware) or control algorithms. The underlying technology is COM/DCOM (Component Object Model/distributed COM): this provides sufficient flexibility and reconfigurability to support the skeleton of the platform in such a way that each component-based controller can contain one or more control applications.