At the heart of Xentara lies the unique Real-Time Core and Scheduler. Taking roughly ten person years to fully develop and implement, these powerful components enable users an unprecedented level of fine control over the timing of processes in both monolithic and distributed systems.
Xentara uses a highly advanced protocol to synchronize all clocks across distributed systems. These ensures that no matter which system a task is running on, it stays perfectly in sync with all others.
For the technology enthusiasts: the method is based on PTP (based on IEEE 1588 or TSN IEEE-802.1AS).
Triggers are the central activation element in Xentara. They can be set off either cyclically by a high precision timer or by configured events (I/O, Applications, Data Point changes, system interrupts, Xentara Functions).
These triggers activate processes:
While classical OT (Operations Technology) communication happens in cycles, requiring exact precision timing, IT communication (including most IoT / IIoT implementations) is almost always message or event based. Xentara resolves that dichotomy!
The Timing Model allows for free mixing of and interaction between real-time and non-real-time processes, allowing you to switch from fieldbus to machine learning to processing to movement controls to fieldbus (etc)… without changing context.
The Timing Model has all the building blocks you need to create any kind of schedule you can imagine.
The Xentara Timing Model supports cycle speeds of up to 10 kHz, allowing for cycle times as low as 100 microseconds.
To demonstrate the small resource footprint of the software, a test setup on an Intel Atom processor using only one core with a load of 20% showed a maximum deviation of 4 microseconds on a 250 microsecond cycle (1.6%). Switching reactions achieved +-5 nanosecond accuracy.
The Timing Model is very versatile, making it look complex, maybe even intimidating. The Xentara Workbench allows easy configuration of all of its elements in a graphical environment.
