SUNNYVALE, CA—August 8, 2000—Real-time Innovations (RTI) today announced that NDDSTM has been selected by a group of leading industrial automation companies to provide real-time communications over Ethernet. NDDS is network middleware that provides real-time publish-subscribe services using the industry-standard TCP/IP protocols. Using Ethernet for real-time control will reduce factory wiring costs and remove the obstructions that make it so difficult for companies to integrate their manufacturing operations and IT systems. The ability to do real-time on Ethernet also eliminates the need for the proprietary field busses that have frustrated manufacturers for so long.
"We selected NDDS to be our communications layer because it provides fast, deterministic communications using off-the-shelf Internet Protocols," stated Martin Jetter, president JetterAG, "Our group is building an open, standards-based software bus for distributed intelligence that will allow programmable logic controllers (PLCs), drives, man-machine interfaces (MMIs), and devices from any vendor to simply "plug in to." NDDS provides a comprehensive set of Layer 7 services so that the same Ethernet backbone can carry the data for high-speed, distributed control and IT system communications."
The five founding companies in the group - Kuka Roboter, Phoenix Contact, Jetter, Lenze, and Sick - announced their goal to define a set of Layer 7 (from the OSI 7-layer model against which all network products are assessed) services and a standard object model for distributed automation at Hannover Messe in March of this year. They formed the group in response to the heightened frustration among vendors and end users since the failure last year to define a standard field bus. The group chose Ethernet rather than an existing field bus because it offered lower cost and higher performance than the field busses available today.
Since the announcement in March, the group has been working on the distributed control communication requirements and Interface for Distributed Automation (IDA), a set of Layer 7 and object application programming interfaces. With IDA-compliant components in place, programmers won't have to write to low level device protocols, component manufacturers will have just one protocol to support and maintain, and end users will be able to freely mix components from different vendors.
"The IDA group came to RTI because they wanted to use Ethernet for real-time communications, but did not want to develop the sophisticated network middleware themselves," said Stan Schneider, RTI president and CEO. "The NDDS real-time publish-subscribe services eliminate network programming and provide fast, efficient communications for a wide variety of real-time and desktop platforms. In addition, the IDA group wanted a product that was commercially available so that vendors could start developing immediately. NDDS has been on the market for several years and is used today in real-time systems for discrete control, large ship controls, and semiconductor manufacturing, among others."
NDDS provides a layer of application real-time publish-subscribe (RTPS) services that eliminate network programming. The publish-subscribe model (also referred to as producer-consumer) is the most efficient means for distributing data in dynamic environments with multiple, interacting nodes. Rather than addressing a packet for all interested nodes and calling the network stack to send each packet, for example, a publisher simply defines a topic and then calls NDDS to send the data. Subscribers simply register their interest in that topic. NDDS takes care of all the network addressing and data delivery chores for the programmer, eliminating thousands of lines of code. NDDS automatically detects when nodes have left and joined the network.
The RTPS model extends the publish-subscribe model by defining a set of object properties that give developers control over message flow, data delivery deadlines, fault tolerance, and issue validity. Distributed control applications use these properties to optimize available bandwidth, ensure real-time operations complete in time, and transparently filter issues from redundant publications. RTI is working with its customers and partners through organizations such as IAONA in Europe, the Java Community Process, and the IETF to establish a standard for the RTPS set of services.
The NDDS v2.2 toolkit is available today along with run-time versions for a wide variety of platforms, including VxWorks, Windows NTT, Windows CET, Solaris, Linux, and HP-UX. The price of the toolkit is $12,000. Performance metrics showing NDDS latency and throughput are available upon request from RTI. In addition, a paper and spreadsheet for calculating the probability of a collision causing, non-deterministic delay on Ethernet are available on the RTI Web site.
Real-Time Innovations, Inc. (RTI) is a leading developer of tools and architectures for the real-time software market. The company's products help real-time developers analyze and understand embedded systems operation, speed development of distributed real-time systems, and coordinate the work of teams of programmers developing large projects. RTI has over 2,000 customers, including leading companies in aerospace, semiconductor equipment, telecommunications, robotics, and industrial automation. A privately held company located in Sunnyvale, Calif., RTI was founded in 1991 and in 1998 was named the 16th fastest-growing private company in Silicon Valley by the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal. Together with our customers, RTI is 'Shaping the Future of Real Time.'
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