B&R is introducing a hypervisor for its automation system. This software allows Windows or Linux to run alongside B&R’s own real-time operating system. That enables you to combine the control and HMI applications on a single PC, for example, or have an industrial PC double as both a real-time controller and an edge controller that sends preprocessed data to higher level systems and the cloud via OPC UA.
Virtual network:
The hypervisor provides a virtual network connection that allows applications to exchange data between operating systems. Like with the usual Ethernet interface, this is done using standard network protocols. In place of a cable, there is a reserved memory area that is not assigned to either operating system.
Maximum flexibility:
The user configures the hypervisor and allocates hardware resources in the B&R Automation Studio software development environment. The configurations are defined separately for each system, providing maximum flexibility in how resources are utilized. Whereas previous parallelization solutions were tailored to a specific Windows version, B&R’s hypervisor is completely independent of which operating systems are used.
