The Industrial Automation Group of Advantech is proud to introduce their new PAC product line, the APAX-5000 series. This new generation of PACs integrates control, information processing, and networking in a single control system with a unique dual controller architecture that makes it superior to other PAC’s in the market. Advantech’s APAX-5000 series fulfill versatility, flexibility, and scalability needs to fully satisfy industrial automation industry applications. The APAX-5000 series consist of controllers, I/O modules, backplanes, and power modules, all with excellent functionality and user-friendly I/O design.
A Unique Architecture – Dual Controllers Separate HMI and SoftLogic Tasks
Critical applications need reliable and non-stop systems; it is not acceptable that the I/O processing is terminated for any reason. To reduce these operational risks, Advantech’s APAX-5000 features a unique architecture, two standalone CPU modules working together responsible for different tasks. One provides high computing power for HMI/SCADA, recipe, database and communication tasks (APAX-5570XPE or APAX-5571XPE) while the other is dedicated for SoftLogic I/O tasks (APAX-5520KW).
This means if the HMI/SCADA controller crashes, the I/O processing won’t be affected and will work as normal. Engineers can simply check the HMI/SCADA controller and maintain it without having to worry about the I/O processing tasks. Separating HMI/SCADA and I/O processing tasks can prevent unexpected stoppage, decreases operational risks, and ensures higher reliability for critical control tasks.
Backup System Enhances System Reliability
Aside from the dual controller architecture, the APAX-5000 controllers also support backup functions. The same I/O processing program can be stored on two controllers, one will execute the I/O processing and if that controller fails, the second controller will automatically take responsibility for I/O processing within 1.5 seconds. Users don’t need to write programs for this mechanism and the backup system enables reliability for critical applications.