The growing popularity of cloud computing and the Internet of Things for private use increased the availability of off-the-shelf device solutions. This shift is particularly the case for widely distributed networks that allow community use like LoRa Wan. However, it is still unclear how mature these products are for use beyond hobbyist needs. Therefore, this paper examines selected off-the-shelf devices and gateways and explores their suitability through experimentation in a LoRaWAN community-enabled infrastructure. In addition, we extend lacking function-ality and report shortcomings and bug fixes.

Industry 4.0 is changing fundamentally the way data is collected, stored and analyzed in industrial processes. While this change enables novel application such as flexible manufacturing of highly customized products, the real-time control of these processes, however, has not yet realized its full potential. We believe that modern virtualization techniques, specifically application containers, present a unique opportunity to decouple control functionality from associated hardware. Through it, we can fully realize the potential for highly distributed and transferable industrial processes even with real-time constraints arising from time-critical sub-processes. In this paper, we present a specifically developed orchestration tool to manage the challenges and opportunities of shifting industrial control software from dedicated hardware to bare-metal servers or (edge) cloud computing platforms. Using off-the-shelf technology, the proposed tool can manage the execution of containerized applications on shared resources without compromising hard real-time execution determinism. Through first experimental results, we confirm the viability and analyzed the behavior of resource shared systems with strict real-time requirements. We then describe experiments set out to deliver expected results and gather performance, application scope and limits of the presented approach.

Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are the most used digital systems in manufacturing industry, but there is little support for test automation of such systems. As net result, testing is mostly done manually or not at all despite the recommendations of the IEC 61131-3 Standard. Attempts to provide an automated testing framework for PLCs have been recently performed with first successful results. The most advanced and promising framework proposes an approach close to object orientation that relies on nonnative language and platform. In this article, we propose a testing library called Advanced Program Organization Unit Testing Framework written in native language, built according to the unit testing paradigm, and supporting automated testing for simple and complex scenarios of IEC 61131-3-compliant PLCs. In this article, we present such library, discuss its performance and advantages, and illustrate its application to a real case study.

We explore the challenges and opportunities of shifting industrial control software from dedicated hardware to bare-metal servers or cloud computing platforms using off the shelf technologies. In particular, we demonstrate that executing time-critical applications on cloud platforms is viable based on a series of dedicated latency tests targeting relevant real-time configurations.

Background: The vision of a fourth industrial revolution lately strongly captured the attention of research A Cyber-physical system (CPS) is one of the main drivers of this vision. Such system controls an underlying factory interacting with sensors, actuators and other systems creating systems-of-systems. A main point of interest is how these components are built and interconnected, i.e. the system's architecture, and how it might be improved to increase reliability and security.