An infrastructure for browser-located applications in industrial automation

The World Wide Web and its associated technologies are being increasingly deployed in industrial automation. Platform independence, widespread availability, acceptance, and remote operation are strong arguments in favor of replacing existing proprietary technologies (especially when being phased out by their vendors) with Web technologies. More and more, Web browsers are utilized for visualization and interaction. When a high degree of interactivity and direct feedback between user and Web-based application is demanded, parts of the application logic should be moved from the server back-end to the browser. We propose a component infrastructure to improve software development, which is based on standardized Web technologies and runs directly in Web browsers. Additional generic functions provide unified access over the network to structured information in automation systems.