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 Advantech
continues to position itself well in the $7 billion a year factory
controls market by offering multiple PC-based hardware platforms
and Microsoft Windows® CE 3.0 support and training. In a market
dominated by programmable logic controllers (PLCs), Windows CE's
real-time performance and ability to act as a common platform
from factory floor to front office to Internet (customer), has
the industry excited about all the new capabilities, benefits
and potential for increased innovation. Advantech's x86 and Windows®
CE development experience, full range of turnkey solutions that
include industrial SBCs, various HMI touchscreen devices and variable
I/O control cards, allow our customers to realize gains in efficiency,
reduce costs and ultimately improve their time to market performance.
Engineers
Hard to Convince
There has
been a growing movement to bring PC power to the factory floor
to handle more dynamic and complicated control tasks. Manufacturing
engineers, however, have been reluctant (and with good reason)
to use PC's and Windows to control their mission critical processes.
The real-time performance of these systems do not meet the control
and safety levels dictated by their applications. The DOS-based
engines driving these PCs simply do not respond fast enough, or
reliably enough, to high priority commands. The chance of the
OS performing a lower priority task at a critical time (ie. emergency
stop), turns engineers off. Real-time extensions that allow Windows
NT to be a priority-based OS, has overcome some of these concerns,
but this is a costly solution that does not hold up well in many
industrial environments. Windows CE 3.0, with its real-time capabilities,
fast reaction time, and small OS footprint that can run from a
SSD or diskless and ability to operate in the harshest environments,
truly brings Windows to the factory floor.
Expanding
Customer Services
Advantech has a full line of hardware and Windows CE 3.0 software
products that allow our customers to capitalize on these current
market trends. We have Evaluation Kits and Platform development
Kits that allow customers to realize fast prototyping and deployment
of their products and applications, visit here to find out more,
http://www.advantech.com.tw/epc/esw/products.asp.
Advantech is also offering Windows CE 3.0 Training and support
for our System On Module products http://www.advantech.com.tw/epc/news/news192.asp
. Advantech's tough and durable industrial grade hardware,
industrial automation domain expertise and our full Windows CE
3.0 capabilities, work well together for these industrial applications.
Bringing
Everything Together
Advantech's
broad product line gives customers a wide range of services and
products to enable their dynamic applications. Decreasing development
time and costs while increasing graphic and display capabilities
and overall system performance, plays well into all kinds of PC/Windows
CE applications. To give an example of this, here is a diagram
of a typical control system for a CNC machine using off-the-shelf
Advantech CPU boards and Digital/Analog IO modules.
Advantages
of a Windows CE 3.0 Solution
The advantages
of using Windows 3.0 are sweeping the machinery and manufacturing
industry. Below is a list of some of these.
- Reduce costs
- OS (Windows CE license less than MS-DOS)
- Buy off-the-shelf hardware products and add on cards,
also supports proprietary I/O control cards
- Reduced hardware demand (no HDD)
- Reduce maintenance costs (Operate from SSD or diskless,
Increased MTBF)
- Reduce development time and costs
- Choose from a wider range of CPUs that better fit application
needs
- Instant On and Off
- No boot up time wasted using CE
- Better performance
- Able to use higher speed processors
- Use larger memory when needed
- Better performance over traditional PLCs, some PLCs may
be up to 50 times slower than Windows CE real-time versions
- The ability for Windows CE to connect to so many other
business and technical Windows-based platforms already firmly
established.
- Managers can connect directly to the factory floor from
the front office (ethernet connectivity platforms)
- Easy to make devices that can dial out and transfer files
to enterprise servers. HTML data can be viewed by browser
allowing better control and collaboration
- Engineers can synch handheld devices
- Scale across multiple platforms running Windows NT or
CE
- Windows CE lets customers leverage thousands of software
applications and developers already familiar with Visual Basic
and C programming.
- Reduce development time and costs
- Easier to migrate existing Windows 98, NT software to
Win CE
- Easier to program and display graphics
- Small and compact OS
- OS can be stored in flash memory (no moving parts)
- Remote Boot capability, further reduce costs by eliminating
SSD, increases reliability as well
- Able to operate in much harsher environments, better shock
and vibration resistance
Contact
Information
Call your
local Advantech sales contact to find out more about Advantech's
Windows CE solutions. Let us put a package together for you. You
can reach us anytime at epc@advantech.com.tw
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