Tango Controls is a free open source device-oriented controls toolkit for controlling any kind of hardware or software and building SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems. Tango Controls is operating system independent and supports C++, Java and Python for all the components.
The concept of Tango Controls has been developed in the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France about 20 years ago. Since then the work on the core of the toolkit has begun. Though Tango Controls has proven itself as a mature toolkit with many users, as an open source Tango Controls toolkit is always being improved.
The software used in synchrotron facilities can be compared with the software for stock markets – huge amount of data must be displayed on the monitor in a real time and being processed and being saved in databases for post processing. As Tango Controls exists for more than 20 years and becomes more and more popular among facilities, it has proved itself as a reliable toolkit.
So, the toolkit was mainly developed for research facilities needs, but the idea and concept (philosophy) behind was to create a framework.
Tango Controls has been enriched with many applications (desktop and web based) that can satisfy almost all your needs. That means that you can use Tango Controls not only as a device-oriented controls toolkit and write your own applications but also use it as a final product. Nowadays Tango Controls has very rich ecosystem that includes all these applications. Among applications, you can find: real-time alarm with alarm status, historical and real-time data monitoring.
Tango Controls is a hardware independent toolkit. That means you can use your driver to connect hardware with Tango Controls. Taking that Tango Controls is used in many facilities for many years, with high probability you can find driver you need in a special device catalogue and use it for free.
Thanks to the concept of Tango Controls and its software architecture, it can be easily integrated to any hardware.
Tango Controls can be used as a desktop, web (remote or local) or distributed system.
Depending on your wishes, Tango Controls can be:
- Stand-alone deployment;
- Remote client server deployment;
- Distributed deployment;
- Remote web client deployment.
Tango Controls emerging to become an industrial Internet of Things (IioT). It has already had device monitoring and device configuration alarm.
With Tango Controls you can build a system that provide monitoring, data collection and exchange. You can also add analytic functions that may help you to make decisions. Make digital transformation help you to make decisions, increase productivity.
Tango can change the way industry and science operate from day-to-day.
So if you have to automatize your project and have security and alarm systems with access control where you can change attributes of devises (controllers, sensors, ...) remotely or directly at the facility, Tango Controls is exactly what you need.
All in all we can say that Tango Controls:
- is free , open source and object-oriented;
- is easy to use and is well adapted to solving simple and complex distributed problems;
- is operating system independent;
- supports C++, Java and Python for all of the components;
- is used to build:
- Distributed Control Systems (DCS) in which devices are controlled and monitored in a local distributed network
- Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems in which remote devices are controlled and monitored centrally
- Integrated Control Systems (ICS) in which different autonomous control systems are integrated into a central one
- Interface Devices that run on small embedded platforms into a distributed control system
- Internet of Things (IoT) applications in which arbitrary devices are controlled through the Internet
- Machine to Machine (M2M) applications in which devices communicates with each other
- System Integration Platforms in which different kind of software applications and systems are integrated into a central one
Tango Controls – connecting things together.