The emergence of virtualized computing and converged networks has the potential to revolutionize industrial automation systems, offering unprecedented levels of flexibility and scalability that were previously unattainable with traditional infrastructure. Therefore, cloud-fog automation (CFA) platforms are becoming key players not only in coordinating the production task management in upper-layer applications but also in handling real-time control and monitoring by the edge devices. In this article, we discuss how cloud/fog-based virtualization and converged communication networks can allow for flexible deployment of automation use cases and evaluate the impacts introduced by the less deterministic infrastructure from the perspective of control. Four representative use cases are studied using our in-house developed CFA platform to demonstrate the smart coordination of automation in a variety of real-life prototypes. Moreover, the capabilities of the commercial off-the-shelf virtualized computing and converged networks are characterized, which confirms the CFA platform as an essential part of the future industrial infrastructure for hosting heterogenous control applications is not a “daydream”.

The development of wireless communication has indeed promoted cloud fog automation in the industry. It also introduces new issues of reliability and latency for control systems. This study sought to investigate the impacts of the commonly used industrial wireless network on the control performance parameters using a ball-and-beam (BB) time-critical balancing control system. An internal model control-inspired latency-aware wireless control framework (IMC-LA) is presented and employed in the BB system to handle the time delays and instability-creating elements introduced by wireless communication. A preliminary control assessment of the BB system under two new-generation wireless technologies, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, was delivered. The correlation between network performance and control performance was analyzed statistically compared to the wired Ethernet condition. Test results show a dramatic decrease in position error after utilizing the proposed latency-aware wireless control framework. This study provides practical insights into the potential impacts of industrial wireless networks on control systems with a workable latency-aware wireless control approach.