‘Open’ control system gets safety controller and app store

Published: 29 January, 2019

Two years after it announced its PLCnext “open” control technology for data-centric applications, Phoenix Contact has unveiled a high-performance controller, based on an Intel i5 dual-core processor with 4GB of RAM, which incorporates a safety controller. The RFC 4072S uses two independent CPUs with different architectures to perform safety calculations, making it suitable for applications up to SIL 3 / PL e.

The safety controller uses the Profisafe profile 2.61 for Profinet and Profisafe systems. Standard and safety programming have been combined in the PLCnext Engineer programming tool.

At the recent SPS IPC Drives show, Phoenix also announced the launch of an app store from which PLCnext users will be able to download apps, not only from Phoenix, but also third-party suppliers. So, for example, someone who has developed smart software for pumping applications will be able to sell it to others via the PLCnext Store.

Phoenix Contact’s safety controller is based on its PLCnext technology

Depending on the type of app chosen, users may not need any programming knowledge to create an application. The store will carry everything from apps for specific applications, to software libraries that help speed up programming, and even alternative runtime systems such as Codesys.