by Gary Mintchell | Feb 4, 2026 | Open Source, Process Control
Yokogawa is a company I just can’t figure out. A former CEO and I had several friendly and informative interviews many years ago. But their automation business in America collapsed, although they retain the office outside Houston along with the instrumentation office outside Atlanta. A marketing person will occasionally send a release.
Discussion the Open Process Automation group, a colleague suggested Yokogawa as a prime mover. I expressed some doubt. I see Foxboro (Schneider Electric) as the company who stands to gain the most from OPAF. I’m not sure where Yokogawa will go.
But their engineering continues its broad involvement with open systems. This news regards its joining the Open Invention Network.
Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that it is joining Open Invention Network 2.0 (OIN 2.0) as a community member. OIN 2.0 is being launched on this date by OIN, an open source patent non-aggression community, to promote the protection and adoption of open source software.
The Open Invention Network (OIN) community promotes the use of open source software through a cross-licensing framework that enables mutual use of patents related to the Linux System*1. The over 4,000 companies that currently belong to the OIN community are provided access to approximately three million patents and patent applications through mutual licensing. The newly launched OIN 2.0 expands the scope of patent protection beyond the traditional Linux System to include emerging areas where open source software usage is growing rapidly, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the energy sector. This evolution enables a cross-licensing framework that supports a broader range of technologies.
Yokogawa signed a license agreement with OIN in 2016 with the aim of accelerating product development and reducing the risks associated with patent litigation, thereby establishing a secure environment for developing system products that utilize Linux. Linux technologies are also used in Yokogawa system products in the OpreX Control and Safety System lineup, such as OpreX Collaborative Information Server. By joining OIN 2.0, Yokogawa has further expanded the range of areas in which open source software can be used with confidence. As a result, customers can benefit from having Linux-based applications and system products that enjoy stronger intellectual property protection.
Yokogawa will continue to promote open innovation and intellectual property protection through co-creation with multiple companies and organizations.
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by Gary Mintchell | Jan 23, 2026 | Automation, Business, Embedded Control, Open Source
I entered the editorial world in the late 1990s during the excitement of something called PC-based control. Technologists of the time were convinced that they could knock off the leading PLC manufacturers with cheaper and easier-to-use technology based on the common personal computer.
This was also the heyday of Open Modular Architecture Controller (OMAC)—a group of engineers working on a standards-based PLC built on a CompactPCI computer that the leading suppliers could build best-in-class modules for but reducing cost and vendor lock-in.
Later, I interviewed many company leaders convinced that their updated PLCs would displace the two acknowledged PLC leaders at the top of the market share pyramid.
All failed.
I asked each one simple question—how are you going to go to market when the leaders have salespeople embedded at every possible customer?
Now comes news that a leading venture capital firm (called by someone on LinkedIn the leading and most influential VC in our space) has invested in yet another attempt to replace the leading PLCs.
I ask of them the same question. Further, does the world really need a new PLC? Are there other customer problems out there to solve?
Here is the news. I wish them well. It will be a tough climb in a mature market. I’m interested in seeing how they will tackle, not the technology, but the marketing.
Momenta, the Industrial Impact venture capital firm, has led the seed round in Autonomy backing the company’s vision to modernize how PLC software is built, deployed, and governed. Through its Autonomy Edge platform, Autonomy brings cloud‑native development discipline to industrial control without compromising determinism, safety, or security.
This investment reflects Momenta’s conviction that industrial automation has reached a true inflection point. As factories face rising cyber risk, tighter labor constraints, and accelerating demands for flexibility, control systems can no longer remain static, proprietary, or isolated from modern software practices. The next phase of automation must be software-defined, interoperable, and designed for continuous change.
Industrial automation remains constrained by proprietary PLC hardware and closed development environments. These systems lock engineers into outdated workflows, fragment IT and OT responsibilities, and slow modernization at the moment when factories need faster outcome-focused iteration.
]Autonomy addresses this constraint directly. Rather than replacing control systems, it modernizes how they are developed and governed. By applying DevOps discipline to PLC software while preserving real-time execution at the edge, the platform aligns control engineering with the operational realities of modern industrial environments.
Autonomy Edge is built on OpenPLC, the world’s leading open-source, IEC 61131-3 compliant, Programmable Logic Controller. Engineers develop PLC logic directly in the browser, with no local installation, and deploy virtual PLCs to any Linux-based industrial device through the Autonomy Orchestrator agent.
This architecture delivers a pragmatic and efficient path for iterative modernization. Existing infrastructure stays in place while control software becomes portable, versioned, and easier to secure. Virtual PLCs run in isolated execution environments and remain centrally managed, combining operational safety with modern lifecycle management.
The result is a rare combination: cloud-native development paired with deterministic edge execution.
A core differentiator of Autonomy Edge is its execution model. Control logic runs in strict network isolation while updates, monitoring, and governance are handled remotely. This air-gapped execution approach significantly reduces attack surfaces while preserving operational visibility, reflecting how industrial operators actually manage risk in production environments.
“We did not just move PLCs to the cloud. We redesigned how control software should be built and governed,” said Thiago Alves, Founder and CEO of Autonomy. “Autonomy Edge modernizes automation without breaking real-time guarantees. Open standards, edge execution, and cloud-native workflows are no longer optional. They are the future of industrial control.”
Autonomy builds on more than a decade of open-source development and field validation:
- OpenPLC Runtime with 1,400+ GitHub stars and 560+ forks
- Cited in more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers on industrial cybersecurity
- Adopted globally by universities for automation and ICS security education
- Industry partnerships with pre-eminent companies like FreeWave Technologies, Arduino, and Movensys
- The release of OpenPLC Editor v4 marks a major platform milestone, delivering a modern interface, cross-platform support, and native integration with Autonomy Edge’s cloud management capabilities.
Autonomy Edge introduces software engineering practices that industrial teams can operationalize today, including browser-based IEC 61131-3 development, cloud-managed versioning and deployment, and hardware-agnostic execution across industrial PCs, gateways, and edge devices.
The global PLC market exceeds $11 billion and is under increasing pressure from cybersecurity requirements, workforce constraints, and the need adapt quickly to changing requirements. Software-defined control, open ecosystems, and edge-native architectures are shifting from optional to essential.
Momenta sees this transition clearly because we operate at the intersection of industrial execution, software platforms, and long-cycle infrastructure. Autonomy exemplifies the kind of operator-aligned innovation required to modernize control systems without disrupting production.
Industrial control is no longer defined only by reliability. It is now defined by adaptability. Autonomy is building the control layer that enables industry to evolve safely and at scale.
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by Gary Mintchell | Mar 26, 2024 | Automation, Edge, Internet of Things, Open Source, Operations Management
The 5th annual Eclipse Foundation IoT and Edge Commercial Adoption Survey actually holds few surprise but shows ongoing trends of investment. I’m not sure if it is good news or worrisome that the C-suite seems to be more involved. These people hold the purse strings, but they also usually hold unrealistic expectations (oversold by engineers?) about the eventual benefits of technology adoption.
The survey includes a comprehensive analysis derived from responses of over 1067 professionals in the IoT and edge computing domain. Conducted online from April 4 to July 5, 2023, the survey offers valuable insights into the evolving IoT and edge computing ecosystems by identifying the requirements, priorities, and challenges faced by organisations that deploy and use commercial solutions, including those based on open source technologies.
“Consistent with our previous surveys, the continuous growth and adoption of IoT and edge computing remains evident. The data reflects a notable increase in the number of managed devices and larger investments, indicative of a scale-up in deployments,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “Particularly notable is that the C-suite significantly influences decision-making for IoT and edge investments. This underscores the strategic value that businesses place on solutions based on open technologies in real-world deployments. Open source components are recognised as vital enablers of success.”
Six of the key takeaways from the survey data include:
- IoT Adoption Surged in 2023: 64% of respondents are now deploying IoT solutions, up from 53% in 2022. An additional 23% plan to deploy within 12-24 months. Less than 5% have no IoT deployment plan.
- Edge Computing Adoption Holds Steady, Acceleration Anticipated: Adoption of edge computing solutions remains at 33% (same as 2022), with an additional 30% indicating plans to deploy within the next 24 months. 27% are still evaluating edge platforms, while only 10% have no plans to deploy edge solutions.
- Rising Investments Signal Scale-Up in Production Deployments: 17% of respondents spent between $1-10M in 2023 (more than double that of 2022), growing to 23% in 2024. 5% anticipate spending over $10M. This trend indicates a transition from proof-of-concept to ROI-focused deployments.
- Growing Number of IoT & Edge Assets per Deployment: Deployments of fewer than 1K managed assets will remain steady or decline, while larger deployments are on the rise, with an impressive 10% of deployments consisting of 50K or more devices. Regarding asset implementation, the mix between greenfield and brownfield is almost equal.
- IoT is Increasingly Strategic with the C-Suite Driving Investment Decisions: 49% of organisations reveal that the C-suite predominantly drives decisions. This marks a significant increase from the 38% reported in 2022, indicating a growing influence of top-level executives in shaping investment choices within the realm of IoT and edge technologies.
- 75% of Organisations Surveyed Embrace Open Source in IoT and Edge: 75% of organisations are actively incorporating open source into their deployment plans. The widespread use of IoT and edge solutions based on open source technologies highlights how open source has become key in shaping today’s technology landscape.
The IoT and Edge Commercial Adoption Survey is sponsored by the Eclipse IoT and Sparkplug Working Groups. It serves as a valuable complement to the annual IoT Developer Survey, a vital source of strategic insights from the development front lines. The Eclipse IoT community represents one of the largest IoT-focused open source collaborations in the world, with 45 members and over 50 projects. Eclipse IoT projects have been broadly adopted by leading organisations across a variety of verticals to deliver commercial IoT and edge-based solutions and services.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 6, 2023 | Automation, Embedded Control, Open Source
This news contains information about another open-source industrial computer based on an inexpensive module—in this case Raspberry Pi. Again I ask (not predicting, but wondering) whether the new wave of engineers inevitably coming into this market will prefer something, small, inexpensive, programmable in familiar languages, and flexible due to advances in networking?
Phytools, a leading IIoT value-added reseller, announced Oct. 11 the publication of its first Revolution Pi White Paper, presenting the seven-year history and technical details of this revolutionary open-source industrial PC (IPC) in an easily-digestible medium. Built on the open, customizable, and commercial-off-the-shelf premise of Raspberry Pi, RevPi ruggedizes the versatile microcomputer for use in industrial applications.
IIoT-enabled IPCs like RevPi are ideal for automation, data connectivity, motion control, robotics support, machine visualization, and many more applications. From 2016 to the present, RevPi has cemented its place in the market by incorporating features such as:
- Modular form factors
- Operating system (OS) determinism
- A wide variety of input/output (I/O) modules
- Communications gateway functionality
- DIN-rail mounting capability
- And extensive support for third-party software, such as CODESYS soft PLC
The latest revision—RevPi Connect 4—was released in August 2023, equipped with a Broadcom BCM2711 processor and support for WLAN and Bluetooth communications. This most recent lineup addition also comes with a battery-buffered real-time clock and easier I/O expansion with a plug-and-play GUI.
RevPi base modules come equipped with USB, Ethernet, and HDMI connections. The two USB 2.0 sockets are each capable of supplying 500mA at 5V, alleviating the need for an external USB power supply when connecting parallel devices. The onboard RJ45 Ethernet connection is industrially hardened with suppressor circuits, and a micro-HDMI socket is included for connecting a monitor with sound output.
The RevPi delineates itself from Raspberry Pi with a portion of its operating system dedicated to deterministic control. Most PLCs in industrial settings leverage a real-time OS (RTOS) to ensure deterministic program execution through a dedicated routine, a rigorous treatment which is used to provide the robust and predictable performance necessary to avoid equipment failures and human harm.
A general-purpose PC OS is more versatile than that of a PLC because of its shareable—and usually more powerful—computing resources, which empower multi-tasking, customization, and processor-intensive operations. However, this flexibility presents a greater risk of OS disruption if one or more tasks becomes corrupted or overloads the processor, potentially leading to delays, instability, or a complete crash.
Revolution Pi uses a split OS, providing the determinism of an RTOS, along with the versatility of a standard OS. As a result, RevPi can be developed into an industrially viable small control system, a large scale IIoT platform, or elements of both simultaneously. Its scheduler—which controls the execution of tasks by the operating system—can be configured extensively to avoid networking or software resource delays, ensuring the best performance for real-time control and other critical or time-sensitive tasks.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 22, 2023 | News, Open Source, Technology
I don’t know when we’ll begin using quantum computing in industrial applications, but heck, we’re beginning to see ChatGPT usage. This news is an advance in quantum compute state-of-the-art.
- The Quantum Brilliance Qristal SDK moves from beta into broad release for developing on-premise and edge applications for compact, room-temperature quantum accelerators
Quantum Brilliance, the leading developer of miniaturised, room-temperature quantum computing products and solutions, announced June 8 the full release of the Qristal SDK, an open-source software development kit for researching applications that integrate the company’s portable, diamond-based quantum accelerators.
Previously in beta, the Quantum Brilliance Qristal SDK is now available for anyone to develop and test novel quantum algorithms for real-world applications specifically designed for quantum accelerators rather than quantum mainframes. Potential use cases include classical-quantum hybrid applications in data centres, massively parallelised clusters of accelerators for computational chemistry and embedded accelerators for edge computing applications such as robotics, autonomous vehicles and satellites.
“With enhancements based on input from beta users, the Qristal SDK allows researchers to leverage quantum-based solutions in a host of potential real-world applications,” said Mark Luo, CEO and co-founder of Quantum Brilliance. “We believe this powerful tool will help organizations around the world understand how quantum accelerators can enable and enhance productisation and commercialisation.”
Qristal SDK users will find fully integrated C++ and Python APIs, NVIDIA CUDA features and customizable noise models to support the development of their quantum-enhanced designs. The software also incorporates MPI, the global standard for large-scale parallel computing, allowing users to optimise, simulate and deploy hybrid applications of parallelised, room-temperature quantum accelerators in high-performance computing (HPC) deployments from supercomputers to edge devices.
Quantum Brilliance’s quantum systems use synthetic diamonds to operate at room temperature in any environment. Unlike large mainframe quantum computers, Quantum Brilliance’s small-form devices do not require cryogenics, vacuum systems or precision laser arrays, consuming significantly less power and enabling deployment onsite or at the edge.
Currently the size of a desktop PC, the company is working to further miniaturise its technology to the size of a semiconductor chip that can be used on any device, wherever classical computers exist today, unlocking practical quantum computing for everyone. The Qristal SDK source code can be downloaded here. The source code includes extensive application libraries for VQE, QAOA, quantum machine learning, natural language processing and more.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 6, 2023 | News, Open Source, Organizations
I picked up this bit of news last month on a blog at the Open Metaverse Foundation by Royal O’Brien published on December 15, 2022. I had written a couple of things on “industrial metaverse” speculating on what is actually new and what could possibly be realistic. The Linux Foundation has begun an effort to bring companies together to work on definitions and security issues. Befitting a project of the Linux Foundation, openness is the plea and the work.
In October, we brought top experts from diverse sectors together with leaders from many of the projects across the Linux Foundation to discuss what it will take to transform the emerging concept of the Metaverse from promise to reality—from digital assets, simulations and transactions, to artificial intelligence, networking, security and privacy, and legal considerations.
One thing I found interesting is the list of interest groups as initially defined. This provides a bit of definition as to their thinking of what constitutes a metaverse market.
- Users,
- transactions,
- digital assets,
- virtual worlds and simulation,
- artificial intelligence,
- networking,
- security and privacy,
- legal and policy.
They are looking for members. I am curious about what companies will join and work on this project. Of course, one thing I won’t discover will be the companies that join to slow down the process.
