Many OEMs strive to maximize plant productivity by allowing machines to perform multiple operations simultaneously. Some of these concurrent operations will involve human interaction, but others may be computationally intensive and/or time-critical. To keep less time-critical tasks from impacting those with a deadline, machines have been built with multiple computing platforms. Typically, these incorporate one or more motion controllers, and one or more supervisory processors that support the operator interface for programming, machine operation, data collection, and maintenance functions. However, using multiple processors is costly. Coming to the rescue is new software specifically targeted at PC platforms...
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