Geared up for Industry 4.0

B&R presenting solutions for tomorrow’s machines in Hanover

According to the Industry 4.0 working group, Smart Factories and the Internet of Things will be reality by 2025. B&R customers will not have to wait nearly that long, however. This innovative specialist in the field of automation offers technologies and solutions that make it possible to implement tomorrow’s machines and systems today. B&R will be presenting their innovative range of products at the Hannover Messe in Hall 9, Booth D28.

“The concepts of the future will thrive on the use of open technologies,” explains Markus Sandhöfner, managing director of B&R Germany. This requirement is already being met by B&R’s Automation Studio software and the open-source POWERLINK and openSAFETY standards. The APROL process control system allows machinery to be quickly and safely interconnected in order to optimize maintenance intervals, overall energy efficiency and the load on individual machines. “This is Industry 4.0 – up close and personal,” says Sandhöfner.

An important step into the future for B&R is the Scalability+ concept, advanced technology that maximizes the overall modularity and flexibility of machines and systems and allows machine manufacturers to select a hardware and software solution that best fits their automation needs – all without having to enter into any kind of commitment. “If the development process determines that components or solutions need to be upgraded or scaled down, this can be done at any time,” says Sandhöfner. Development work that has already been completed is completely retained.

High performance with a compact design

B&Rs modular Panel PC platform is an important component of Scalability+. The newest system in this platform, the Panel PC 2100, will be presented to the public for the first time at the Hannover Messe. All 2^nd generation Automation Panels – both the rack-mounted and support arm variants – can be upgraded to a powerful Panel PC system simply by installing the PC module. Taking advantage of innovative Bay Trail architecture from Intel, the PC module is as compact as a DVI/SDL receiver. At the same time, the computing power is fully scalable, with single-core, dual-core or quad-core processors available depending on the actual requirements of the user.

[B&R www.br-automation.com]