I am looking into using a new product from Omron which they call an "Open Network Controller," or ONC for short. It has Ethernet 10baseT and Devicenet connectivity in addition to various Omron network protocols, and is supposed to soon support Profibus.

It is basically a diskless PC running an embedded OS called QNX, which as I can tell from their website, is a proprietary linux variant claiming to have superior real time control. They claim it to be fully compatible with linux, GNU, POSIX, Ansii C/C++. Sounds like linux to me.

Anyhow, the product also can be ordered with a "Soft Logic Controller" called IsaGRAF, by Transysoft. In addition, it says "All IEC1131-3 programming languages supported in addition to flowchart." I don't know what those languages are.

Has anybody worked with this? Anyone familiar with QNX? It looks like it has a nice industrial harware package that could fit into the LPLC project.

Dale
Honda Eq Staff

 

QNX predates Linux by at least a decade. They've been doing POSIX compliant real-time on x86 since Linus was in diapers. QNX is real time from the ground up without any RTLinux hacks and works great, but it's not free. (At least not after you deploy it for real) The reason you probably haven't heard of it is that until lately they had the most brain-dead and hateful way of dealing with potential customers of any company, ever. Except maybe WindRiver.

 

You can use the software from "www.altersys.com":http://www.altersys.com . The ISaGRAF Enhanced suite has everything you need to start you project rapidly. If the Omron Open Controller is compatible with QNX 4.25 Rev E you can use this software immediatly. If you need more information I'm a independant control and software enginner and i did projects with this software package on different platform. Do not hesitate to communicate with me.