A modular software architecture for manufacturing control

There is a need for distributed manufacturing systems which use low-priced PC computers and, especially when the control software costs are comparable to the hardware costs. The recent developments in PC-computer operating systems has opened new possibilities to create easy to update modular systems. There are multitasking, memory protected operating systems like OS/2 and WINDOWS NT in the market. This article presents a software structure, which gives additional possibilities to create modular, distributable, asynchronous software components, and where updates are easier and can be done online. The paper first lists some important characteristics of an ideal modular software package and then describes the modular software structure and how the modularity characteristics are implemented