Towards parallel execution of IEC 61131 industrial cyber-physical systems applications

In industrial cyber-physical systems (CPS)¹, the ability of a system to react quicker to its inputs by just a few milliseconds can be translated to billions of dollars in additional profit over just a few years of uninterrupted operation. Therefore, it is important to reduce the cycle time of industrial CPS applications not only for the economical benefits but also for waste minimization, energy reduction, and safer working environments. In this paper, we present a novel method to reduce the execution time of CPS applications through a holistic software/hardware method that enables automatic parallelization of standardized industrial automation languages and their execution in multi-core processors. Through a realistic CPS, we demonstrate that parallel execution reduces the cycle time of the application and increases the life-cycle through better utilization of the mechanical, electrical, and computing resources.