Integrated controller redundancy increases plant availability

With plant availability playing such a crucial role in the process industry, measures to increase this include using redundant architectures to safeguard against failures of individual control components. For redundant control operation, TwinCAT Controller Redundancy is available.

This system-integrated software solution allows two standard industrial PCs to be operated as redundant controllers that both run the same PLC program. An additional, high-performance network connection between the two controls provides the necessary data synchronization, and the fact that standard Ethernet is used means no dedicated hardware components are required. This ensures that only one of the two industrial PCs addresses the fieldbus components at any given time and that the control programs are executed on both computers with the same database. If one control fails, the second control seamlessly takes over, preventing plant downtime and data loss.