Design of distributed control systems in the next millennium

The paper considers how new technologies and standards are emerging that are set to have a dramatic effect on the design and implementation of industrial control systems. These technologies will reduce the time to bring new systems on stream, and leverage the integration of business and industrial systems. The fusion of distributed object technology, with function blocks as defined in the new IEC standard 1499, will allow distributed industrial control systems to be created by the interconnection of software components.