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This paper investigates a ARM and FPGA-based hybrid-processors real-time embedded Linux platform. This platform is designed as a general purpose embedded system that can be fitted into a number of applications such as digital controller, embedded web server or base station in wireless sensor networks. However, its hybrid-processors feature makes it a perfect experimental platform for scientific research. In this paper, we will discuss some of the basic functions as well as advanced features of this platform. We will also discuss briefly how this platform could be useful for a scientific research by sharing computational load in hybrid-processors.

Linux, an operating system kernel with a heritage derived from the room-sized mainframes of the 1970s, has seen a trememdous amount of multidisciplinary and worldwide development which has resulted in its ability to operate on some of the smallest and lowest power microprocessors available today. With its ongoing penetration into mass market embedded systems such as smart phones, automotive and aeronautical equipment, multimedia entertainment devices and personal digital assistants, versions of Linux are now the operating system of choice for many embedded developers. However Linux tends to be overlooked in the more traditional embedded electronics education. This paper explores the characteristics of embedded Linux that affect the education of embedded systems, and describes a tested educational model for its teaching within a general embedded systems education course.

This paper focuses on designing and implementing an agent framework for the purposes of electronic prognostics of critical tools and machinery in the plant. It deals with dual communication i.e. one originating from the sensors and relayed to various reception centers and the other originating from an intelligent prognostics engine (IPE) being fed back to the control mechanism (manual/automated) of the machinery. The paper presents the feasibility of deploying agents in embedded and supervisory controllers for collating, managing and communicating information. The conceptual design and prototype model establishes the efficacy of the agent framework in diagnostics as well as prognostics. The framework is developed using Java agent development framework (JADE). This paper concentrates on development of peer agent communication, communication ontologies; agent behaviors based on messaging performatives, integration issues and graphical user interfaces for diverse agents and human interfaces. It also evolves a conceptual agent framework for manufacturing environment. The work can potentially improve reliability: reduce equipment downtime by using intelligence and contextual information from sensors and events. It facilitates the timely availability of the critical data for real-time monitoring and corrective signals, as well as a transparent and rapid configuration mechanism for intelligent monitoring.

A recently completed collaboration project with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has resulted in a platform for federated control, intended to be deployed in next generation smart equipment or process control. This prototype platform, tentatively named DCAP (distributed control application platform) is designed for developing component-based control applications for federated embedded control systems. Component-based development has been the driving force throughout the development stage of the prototype. Components, distributed in the platform are required to support the skeleton, needed for e.g. remotely enabling or disabling modules, like device drivers (to cater for different hardware) or control algorithms. The underlying technology is COM/DCOM (Component Object Model/distributed COM): this provides sufficient flexibility and reconfigurability to support the skeleton of the platform in such a way that each component-based controller can contain one or more control applications.

During the development of advanced manufacturing systems and industrial automation equipments, the developer has to consider a lot of Control Applications (CA). There are always growing need, for manufacturers to improve their capacity and flexibility to quickly respond to market requirements by designing novel CAs, modifying legacy ones and integrating them together. In the paper, Distributed Control Application Platform (DCAP) is presented as a control platform for developing CAs of advanced manufacturing systems. The DCAP can collect data over a heterogeneous control network from any device. The DCAP can then control, monitor and optimize the operations of the systems, whether for large and complex plants or for simple and single-user devices. The DCAP provides a software framework and tools to develop and deploy CAs for complex manufacturing systems. With the help of the DCAP, it is easy and fast to build complex control systems. A modular robot based manufacturing work cell system is adopted as a case study and the DCAP is used to develop CAs for the system.

A prototype was developed of a generic platform which can be used for building reconfigurable distributed embedded controllers. The platform provides the tooling for assembling a component-based controller framework for distributed control and for generating Control Applications (CApps), which can run on such a controller and execute certain control functions. The Object Model was used for device drivers, as well as for non-mandatory components and implemented by respectively a Common Device Model (CDM) and a Component Management Model (CMM). By incorporating CDM and CMM into the framework's architecture it is possible to reconfigure the controller by plugging or unplugging components and drivers-remotely and on-the-fly-e.g. to cater for different hardware or to implement different control strategy. A case study, wherein a Distributed Control Application Platform was used to control a robot for production cell simulation, demonstrated the concept of remote configuration and control of applications developed with the platform.

This paper describes the design of a framework and implementation of a testbed of an event propagation and management system. These events are generated by equipment or machines in a plant. Event states are modeled using statecharts and colored Petri nets, which were used also for simulating the proposed system. In our lab test a small network is set-up, which represents a federated control system consisting of (simulated) equipment generating events, a server brokering between event producers and consumers and mobile phones, which are the consumer of events and that are used to respond to events using SMS messaging. The testbed simulates equipment or machines in a factory or plant, which under normal circumstances operate stand-alone or with minimal supervision of an operator. In case of failure, these machines require immediate response from a service engineer, as the operation of the machine within the factory or plant is mission-critical and thus demands a minimum downtime (as will be the case when there are abnormalities, failures or events). The framework was successfully tested and has been found to be a viable and affordable solution for efficient event management.