XPE Lounge, page-732

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330530&

Extract:

GE Plugs into Industrial Internet
A look under the hood of a hybrid system
Rick Merritt
9/27/2016 05:45 PM EDT


SAN JOSE, Calif. — Plugging utilities and factories into Web services and third-party apps is no easy feat. Just ask Rich Carpenter, the executive behind the Industrial Internet Control System that GE claims is the first to make such connections.

The portfolio of new systems represent a milestone of blending PC and industrial-control technologies in a secure product, said Carpenter, general manager of control platforms in GE’s automation and controls group. He gave EE Times a virtual look under the hood of the designs geared for an industrial Internet of Things.

The controllers are “no longer limited to looking down to the physical sensors,” said Carpenter. “They are now able to ‘look up’ in a secure and authenticated way to information beyond the reach of typical control systems” to access to Web data and apps other control systems lack, he said.

The “looking up” involves capturing Web data on anything from weather forecasts to stock market swings. The systems can suggest changes to factory controls based on the data and predictions from homegrown and third-party apps such as GE’s Predix software which runs in the systems on Linux or Windows.

GE built the systems using a range of dual- and quad core x86 processors from AMD and Intel. They are mounted on standard ComExpress boards sourced from its own division that sells merchant single-board computers. Previously the GE automation group built its own proprietary x86 boards.

The systems are also GE’s first to use time-synchronized networks, using the IEEE 1588v2 protocol implemented in an FPGA. The approach lets the systems create and run separate virtual network connections.

“We take one high-performance LAN and make it look like two or three LANs with separate guaranteed service levels — this eliminate kilometers of wiring by combining multiple functions on one set of virtually separated networks,” Carpenter said.


PDYOR