The "Raspberry Pi & Co in Industry" slot at the Automation 4.0 Summit on the second day of SPS IPC Drives 2017 in Nuremberg focused on the topic of open source. In his introductory presentation, Carsten Emde from OSADL, who also moderated the event, explored the question: Is open source ready for the industry? He examined the economic concept, the license model and the software quality and came to a clear conclusion: Yes, it is worth it. The following presentations showed the concepts and applications.

Michael Marwell from Digi-Key gave an overview of the various open source platforms. Three platforms were then examined in more detail. Dr. Markus von Detten from Janz Tec kicked things off: he discussed the possibilities of the Raspberry Pi platform, but also pointed out its limitations. Janz Tec has therefore modified the Raspberry Pi board and designed it for industrial use - for example for 24/7 operation. Kunbus took a similar approach with the Revolution Pi platform, which is based on the Raspberry Pi compute module and was presented by Sales Manager Andreas Müller. All circuit diagrams and interfaces for the Linux system are open, there are maker sets for your own ideas and a large community. Another open source platform is Arduino - and industrial products can also be launched on this platform, as Marco Riedesser from Conelcom made clear with his Controllino devices.

Roland Wagner from 3S-Smart Software Solutions emphasized the range of possible applications - for example with the software tool Codesys Control for Raspberry Pi SL. The Raspberry Pi is ideal for prototype development or for estimating application performance. The project can then be transferred to a 'real' PLC.

Dieter Goltz from Logi.cals showed that in addition to the area of pre-development of PLC programs, open source can cover other interesting areas of application. He presented the tools GIT, Gerrit and Jenkins, which enable the implementation of a quality-assuring and efficiency-enhancing software engineering process. In the last presentation, moderator Carsten Emde took a look at the licensing issues surrounding open source software. This is because licensing obligations must be observed when redistributing software.

Open source will also be an important topic at embedded world 2018. The following companies that spoke at the event will be exhibiting at the trade fair:

• 3S-Smart Software Solutions (Hall 4/307)
• Digi-Key (Hall 4A/633)
• Janz Tec (Hall 2/411)
• Kunbus (Hall 3A/131)
• Logi.cals (Hall 4/538)
• OSADL (Hall 4/168)