Redeployment of control software during runtime for modular automation systems taking real-time and distributed I/O into consideration

Automation Systems have to deal with breakdowns of their components which potentially lead to drop-off in production and high follow-up costs. The current solution for this problem is the use of redundant hardware ensuring high availability but causing high costs. Starting from nowadays often used distributed automation systems, this paper proposes a software-based solution for high availability using automatic redeployment of control software during runtime avoiding high costs for redundant hardware. Existing approaches are enhanced concerning real-time and distributed I/O. The proposed solution replaces manual deployment and increases flexibility of automation systems.