Linux in the Production World

[BlackDiamonds]

Just curious if anyone out there has used Linux in a manufacturing environment. Back in the mid 90's we used linux to control automated storage and retrieval equipment, but it required custom-written communication drivers with allen-bradley PLCs. Anyone doing anything out there these days? I am currently involved in a project that has excellent c code from the 80s running under dos, with a b-trieve database. Client looking to modernize and I would love to stick with c code under linux.

[Rubberman]

Manufacturing hardware control has hard realtime requirements, which standard Linux implementations cannot easily meet (if at all). There are Linux derivatives that purportedly support hard realtime constraints, but they aren't fully FOSS (Free and Open Sourced) and are pricey. My preference for realtime manufacturing systems is QNX. It is a fully posix operating system with a message-passing micro-kernel architecture, supports standard development tools such as gnu compilers and debuggers, Eclipse CDT, etc. It is widely used in the most demanding manufacturing environments, including manufacturing cell control, embedded machine controls, and distributed control systems. There are definitely companies that provide software to interface QNX with PLC's of various sorts including Allen-Bradley, a number of which I wrote in the past on earlier versions of QNX. For more information, go to QNX Realtime operating system (RTOS) software, development tools, and services for embedded applications.