• M. Eguiraun
  ESS-Bilbao, Zamudio
• I. Arredondo
  ESS Bilbao, Bilbao
• I. Badillo, J. Jugo
  University of the Basque Country, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bilbao

The use of distributed control systems for improving control system's performance is a hot research topic. Thus, the importance of developing control systems across networked environment is rising, a lot of research is focused on developing middleware based solutions. On the other hand, EPICS is an extended control system middleware, which is based on TCP/UDP protocol. This protocol has non-deterministic characteristics, limiting its use for networked control systems. Despite of these characteristics, the interest on TCP based networks in industrial field has been increasing due to its advantages in cost and easy integration. In this work, EPICS as a networked control system is analyzed in order to develop strategies to improve its performance. For this purpose, an EPICS based networked control scheme is presented, where control loop is closed over the net. As opposed to usual way of working with EPICS, two IOCs are used located in different hosts. The first one performs data acquisition, while the second one calculates the control signal. The analysis and control performance study of such scheme is presented by using periodic sampling, as well as event based sampling approach.