Beckhoff Unveils TwinCAT 3 at SPS/IPC/DRIVES 2011

Features simplified engineering along with new languages and language options

  • Posted on 30 November 2011 by Bob Gill

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Following its successfully completed beta phase, TwinCAT 3 – the new software generation for PC-based control technology from Beckhoff Automation – was released at last week's SPS/IPC/DRIVES 2011 show in Germany. Around 100 customers from various branches of industry tested TwinCAT 3 in projects and were said to be convinced by the new features in the engineering and in the run-time modes.

TwinCAT 3 features simplified engineering along with new languages and language options, such as the object orientation of IEC 61131, C/C++ and Matlab/Simulink for real-time applications. The embedding in Microsoft Visual Studio was reportedly regarded as very positive for enabling efficient software engineering.  

The TwinCAT 3 run-time with multi-core support provides for a considerable increase in performance. And modules written in the different languages are executed cooperatively with one another and can communicate with one another. Beckhoff says its control philosophy of implementing as much functionality as possible in software on the PC reaches a new dimension with TwinCAT 3.