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 was developed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France back in 1999. Since then, work on the core of the toolkit has continued. Tango Controls is an open source project, which has proven itself as a mature toolkit with many users worldwide.
The software used in synchrotron facilities can be compared with the software for stock markets – huge amounts of data must be displayed on the monitor in real time and must be processed and saved in databases for post processing.
The toolkit was mainly developed for research facilities needs, but the basic idea and concept behind it was to create a framework.
Tango Controls has a very rich ecosystem that includes many applications available as both desktop apps and as web based tools. This means that you can use Tango Controls not only as a device-oriented controls toolkit to write your own applications but also use it as a final product. Among the selection of applications you can find: real-time alarm with alarm status, historical and real-time data monitoring.
Tango Controls is a hardware independent toolkit, meaning you can use your driver to connect hardware with Tango Controls. Given that Tango Controls is already used in many facilities, there is a good chance that you can find the driver that you need in a special device catalogue and can use it for free.
Thanks to the concept of Tango Controls and its software architecture, it can be easily integrated with any hardware.
Tango Controls can be used as a desktop, web (remote or local) or distributed system.
Depending on your needs, Tango Controls can be a:
- Stand-alone deployment;
- Remote client server deployment;
- Distributed deployment;
- Remote web client deployment.
Tango Controls is becoming an industrial Internet of Things (IioT). It has already had device monitoring and device configuration alarm.
Tango can change the way industry and science operate from day-to-day. With Tango Controls you can build a system that provides monitoring, data collection and exchange. You can also add analytic functions that may help you to make decisions that could increase productivity and efficiency.
If you need 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 the answer.
In summary, 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 communicate with each other
- System Integration Platforms in which different kinds of software applications and systems are integrated into a central one
Tango Controls – connecting things together.