ABSTRACT
Industrial automation is currently characterized by a number of trends induced by the current market situation. The main trends are the pursuit of high flexibility, good scalability, and high robustness of automation systems; the integration of new technologies; and the harmonization of used technologies in all fields and levels of automation. Of special interest is the integration of technologies, which were originally developed for the office world into the control area. This trend is characterized by the emergence of industrial PCs, operating systems for embedded devices like WindowsCE, embedded Linux and RTLinux, data presentation technologies like XML, and communication technologies such as Ethernet and Internet technologies.
