Currently, the global industrial control market is largely monopolized by Siemens, Rockwell Automation, and Mitsubishi. Furthermore, these three industrial giants have vastly different product characteristics, programming environments, and operating styles. Siemens and Rockwell Automation each have their own independent R&D styles, while Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi, have incorporated their own innovative elements into the foundation of American systems, thus forming their own unique approach.
Because these three companies hold dominant market power, they often refer to international standards in areas such as programming, usage, and security rather than strictly adhering to them, and they don't deliberately ensure compatibility with other products. This causes application engineers considerable headaches when performing system and project integration due to the differences between various products. Engineers have to spend a significant amount of time learning and adapting to different products, which greatly hinders the application and development of technology.
Siemens, Rockwell, and Mitsubishi can be like Apple's iOS system: they possess powerful technology and can protect their market through closed technological barriers, but to some extent, this restricts the development of the downstream technology application market.
In the field of industrial control, facing the dominant positions of leaders like Siemens, other major players can only take the lion's share. This is because their core business isn't industrial control, thus they lack the motivation to expand investment, or they simply lack the strength to do so.
In this environment, the German company 3S (Smart, Software, Solutions) developed CoDeSys, an IEC 61131-3 PLC development software that is independent of hardware and manufacturers.
CoDeSys (Controlled Development System) has the following characteristics:
1. Supports multiple PLC programming languages (IL, ST, LD, SFC, CFC, FBD)
2. Supports multiple fieldbuses (EtherCAT, CANopen, etc.)
3. Supports multitasking and powerful IO extensions.
4. In addition to standard PLC functions, it also supports point-to-point, interpolation, electronic cam, CNC and other motion control functions, and provides an additional integrated library of motion control functions such as 5-axis linkage and parallel robot.
CoDeSys's powerful functionality, strict adherence to international standards, and openness—not relying on any specific hardware platform—saves numerous PLC and IPC manufacturers significant software development time, greatly reducing R&D expenditure and improving product performance. These characteristics are quite similar to the Android operating system in mobile phones, and 3S Company is renowned as the "Microsoft" of the industrial control industry due to its strong software development capabilities.
Currently, internationally renowned manufacturers such as Schneider Electric, ABB, Beckhoff, Bosch Rexroth, Omron, and Luster have already applied the CoDeSys platform to high-end controllers. It has demonstrated its capabilities in high-end applications such as automotive manufacturing, automotive electronics, wind power, high-end CNC lathes, shipbuilding, and marine engineering.
For automation manufacturers, CoDeSys can enhance their soft power in the shortest time and enable them to conduct secondary development on its platform, incorporating their own unique features, such as Beckhoff's TwinCAT and Schneider's SoMachine.
For application engineers, a standardized platform frees them from the tedious process of learning and adapting to the product, allowing them to focus more on the project itself rather than the product, thus unleashing their creative potential.
With the second tier of companies like Beckhoff, Schneider Electric, ABB, and Omron gaining a foothold in the mid-to-high-end application market thanks to the CoDeSys platform, CoDeSys is increasingly gaining attention from domestic manufacturers who recognize the importance of win-win cooperation. Domestic manufacturers such as Hollysys, EVE Energy, Inovance, and Boke have also begun to launch medium and large-sized PLCs based on the CoDeSys platform to catch up with the policy support of Industry 4.0 and Made in China 2025.
CoDeSys may not necessarily be superior to the development environments of Siemens, Rockwell, and Mitsubishi, but its openness, high compatibility, and standardization provide a kind of open-source "Android" system for second- and third-tier manufacturers, enabling them to quickly improve their software capabilities. For a long time to come, the "Android" camp represented by CoDeSys and the "iOS" camp represented by Siemens and others will compete and develop with each other.
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