TenAsys Expands INtime Real-Time Interface Support.

Support for National Instruments IEEE-488.2, Delta Tau PMAC motion controllers, and the EtherCAT fieldbus is now available to develop complex real-time applications using the INtime Real-time Extension for Windows.

Beaverton, OR – January 4, 2005– TenAsys Corporation announces support for three complex I/O subsystems for use with the INtime Real-time Extension for Windows: National Instruments’ PCI-GPIB cards, Delta Tau’s PCI-based Turbo PMAC multi-axis motion control cards, and EtherCAT (a hard real-time fieldbus for Ethernet). These INtime software subsystems are provided as real-time drivers and/or libraries with APIs designed specifically to support their unique hardware.

In most cases the API presented within the INtime environment is identical to that provided by each hardware I/O vendor in the Windows environment. This means that complex I/O applications that were developed to run under Windows, but require hard real-time determinism in order to operate reliably and correctly, can be easily ported to the INtime real-time environment. Utilizing INtime in this way preserves any investment in Windows code that is not real-time sensitive; only those parts of the system that require real-time determinism need to be ported to the INtime real-time environment.

For detailed information regarding all TenAsys real-time products please visit the TenAsys web-site at http://www.tenasys.com/products.

National Instruments IEEE-488.2

INtime real-time applications can now easily incorporate support for IEEE-488 (GPIB) peripherals when using the National Instruments PCI-GPIB and PCI-GPIB+ I/O cards. Support is provided in the form of a real-time shared library (.RSL) and header files (.H) that implements the NI-488.2 board-level API.

The INtime implementation of the NI-488.2 board-level API (e.g., ibcmd, ibrd, ibwrt) is directly derived from and fully compatible with the National Instruments board-level API. In addition, a compatible subset of the National Instruments device-level API is also provided within the same real-time shared library. Existing applications written to use the NI-488.2 board-level DLL for Windows can be directly ported to the INtime environment for use with the INtime RSL.

Contact TenAsys directly for more information regarding the INtime IEEE-488.2 RSL.

Delta Tau Turbo PMAC2 Multi-axis Controller

The INtime Turbo PMAC2 Driver is a real-time device driver with support for up to four Delta Tau Turbo PMAC2 Programmable Multi Axis Controller PCI cards in a single INtime real-time Windows system. Each PMAC2 card is capable of controlling between four and 32 axes of motion.

The INtime Turbo PMAC2 driver real-time API is identical to that defined by Delta Tau for Windows, making it very easy to port existing Windows-based PMAC motion control applications to INtime real-time applications. Because the INtime Turbo PMAC2 driver is implemented using the INtime Service/Message Ports model, multiple real-time processes can safely access the PMAC2 motion controllers in a system.

Contact TenAsys directly for more information regarding the INtime Turbo PMAC2 real-time driver. Please visit http://www.deltatau.com/ for more information regarding Delta Tau Turbo PMAC2 Multi-axis Controller cards.

EtherCAT Fieldbus

Profimatics GmbH, an embedded system developer and TenAsys partner, has developed a real-time EtherCAT master for INtime real-time systems running under Windows. Their software allows one to utilize a standard Windows PC platform as the EtherCAT master in a deterministic EtherCAT fieldbus network. Contact Profimatics at +49 (4123) 928280 or http://www.profimatics.de/ for a demonstration of their system.

An EtherCAT fieldbus utilizes the speed and cost effectiveness of Ethernet hardware to implement a fieldbus network that provides greater performance than traditional fieldbus solutions. For example, 1000 distributed digital I/O points can be queried within 30µs, 200 analog values in 50µs, or 100 axes of motion can be controlled in 100µs. EtherCAT is particularly well suited for PC-based control technology. A PC-based system master requires no special plug-in card and can be implemented on any existing Ethernet controller.

Please visit http://www.ethercat.org/ for more information about the EtherCAT fieldbus standard.

About TenAsys and INtime

INtime Real Time Extensions for Windows is a fully featured RTOS derived from iRMX. Applications written for the INtime RTOS execute with guaranteed determinism as fully-protected user-mode processes in concurrence with the Microsoft Windows operating system on standard PC hardware. Because real-time application code executes in user-mode the INtime environment is immune to application faults that crash kernel-mode driver solutions.

Using the INtime real-time extension for Windows, designers can reduce the cost of implementing computer-based control systems by utilizing x86-based PC hardware and Microsoft Windows software. INtime software combines the benefits of the Windows operating system — standard APIs, networking, user interface, and development environment — with a proven, highly reliable, real-time kernel designed for critical applications.

TenAsys, INtime and iRMX are registered trademarks of TenAsys Corporation. The names of other companies, products, and brands mentioned herein may be trademarks of other owners.

press contact:  Bob Patterson, MKTX, Inc., +1 503 646-6589,