High Communication Throughput and Low Scan Cycle Time with Multi/Many-Core Programmable Logic Controllers

Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are hard real-time embedded systems designed to interact with (through sensors and actuators) and control physical processes in pharmaceutical, manufacturing, energy, and automotive industries. PLCs are the fundamental building blocks in modern industrial automation systems; they are designed to operate in extreme, harsh environments for decades without interruption. This letter presents and evaluates a novel, scalable hardware/software architecture for multi/many-core PLCs capable of pipelining the “sensing-executing-actuating” stages of a control system and thus reducing the scan cycle time (SCT) and maintaining a high-throughput communication (HTC). SCT and HTC are two of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) in industrial control systems because they determine the accuracy of the control algorithms.