by Kim Hartman and Paul Fischer
PC-compatible industrial computers are increasing in computing power at a rapid rate due to the availability of multi-core microprocessor chips, and Microsoft Windows has become the de-facto software platform for implementing human-machine interfaces (HMIs).
PCs are also becoming more reliable. With these trends, the practice of building robotic systems as complex multi-architecture, multi-platform systems is being challenged. It is now becoming possible to integrate all the functions of machine control and HMI into a single platform, without sacrificing performance and reliability of processing.
Through new developments in software, we are seeing industrial systems evolving to better integrate Windows with real-time functionality such as machine vision and motion control. Software support to simplify motion control algorithm implementation already exists for the Intel processor architecture.
