Why PLCnext Technology Is Changing Industrial Automation Forever
Meet PLCnext Technology, a networking powerhouse bridging IT and OT with ease. Powered by open Linux-based controllers, it supports industrial protocols like OPC UA, MQTT, PROFINET, and PROFIBUS and various more protocols, giving your machines full communication fluency across legacy and modern systems alike. From edge to cloud, PLCnext Technology keeps your data flowing seamlessly.
Explore PLCnext TechnologyIn this episode of the Unplugged: An IIoT Podcast, hosts Phil Seboa and Ed Fuentes sit down with Martin Boers, Technical Specialist at PLCnext Technology with Phoenix Contact. Martin brings a unique perspective to the automation world: trained as a chemical engineer and process modeler, he spent years asking why PLCs could not be programmed the way PCs could. That question shaped his career and eventually led him to the platform he now supports. This conversation covers the origins of PLCnext Technology, its four-pillar ecosystem, the convergence of IT and OT in modern plants, and why openness in automation hardware is both a massive opportunity and a serious responsibility.
Martin's path into industrial automation started in an aluminum smelter in Melbourne in the early 1990s. He was building thermodynamic and hydrodynamic models in C++, and when he transitioned to working with PLCs, the limitations hit him immediately. "Why can't I program these things in C++?" he recalls thinking. At the time, PLCs were confined to ladder logic and instruction list, languages rooted in the relay logic heritage of the devices themselves. Martin saw the gap between what high-level programming could accomplish and what PLC platforms allowed, and that frustration became a throughline in his career.
He discovered Phoenix Contact in the early 2000s, drawn to their inline controllers that already featured built-in Ethernet ports and a Windows CE operating system with an embedded .NET Common Language Runtime. Even then, Phoenix Contact was pushing PLCs closer to the capabilities of industrial PCs. When the company began developing PLCnext Technology on a Linux kernel roughly 15 years ago, Martin saw the realization of the idea he had been chasing since his days in the smelter.
PLCnext Technology is not just a PLC. Martin describes it as an ecosystem built on four pillars. The first is PLCnext Control, the physical hardware running on a Linux kernel with real-time capability provided by the PREEMPT_RT patch. The second is PLCnext Engineer, the integrated development environment that supports IEC 61131-3 languages like ladder logic, function block diagrams, sequential function chart, and structured text.
The third pillar is the PLCnext Store, an app marketplace specifically for PLCnext Control devices. Martin is quick to point out that the Store is not a charity shop. Developers can register, package their apps, and charge for them. "If somebody has developed something that they think is very useful and they're proud of, they don't have to be charitable," he explains. The fourth pillar is the PLCnext Community, which has been central to the platform's growth from the beginning, providing a space for users to share knowledge, solve problems, and push the boundaries of what the hardware can do.
The word that keeps coming up in this conversation is "openness." PLCnext Control devices run Linux, which means users can log into the operating system, install open-source packages, run Docker containers, and develop function blocks in C++, C#, or even deploy MATLAB Simulink models directly to the PLC. Early adopters immediately started trying to run Python applications, custom web servers, and communication protocols on the device. Martin recalls that the response from IT-savvy engineers was almost electric: "Finally, here was a device that seemed to do what people with my background had sort of been waiting for."
But openness comes with a warning. Martin borrows a saying to make the point: "It's good to keep an open mind, but if it's too open, your brain will fall out." Users can install software that interferes with the real-time scheduling of the PLC. A C++ library with a sleep instruction, for example, will halt the real-time thread and destroy deterministic cycle times. The platform gives users enormous flexibility, but it also demands that they understand the boundaries between real-time and non-real-time execution.
Martin remembers a time when IT teams handed the factory a set of IP addresses, installed a firewall, and said, "You guys just do whatever you want out there. I don't want to know about it." That era is over. Every modern PLC has an Ethernet port on the CPU, and these devices must now be managed as full participants on professional networks.
In Europe, the Cyber Resilience Act is raising the bar for every connected device, not just automation hardware. The regulation requires security features in the product and certification of the entire development and manufacturing process. Martin notes that Phoenix Contact is already compliant. "We even had an audit there last week," he says. "Some companies might be sort of scrambling a bit to catch up, but there's no problems for us."
Phoenix Contact's vision of an "all-electric society" provides a compelling lens for understanding PLCnext Technology's reach. Martin describes how the platform is deployed across the entire energy chain. Wind turbine operators use PLCnext controllers in the nacelles to manage rotor control. Solar plant operators rely on them for energy management. Electrical substations use a dedicated energy controller built on the platform. Even electric vehicle charging stations run on a PLCnext-based controller called CHARX.
At Phoenix Contact's own manufacturing facility in Germany, PLCnext Technology monitors energy usage on the factory floor and identifies opportunities for savings. The thread connecting all these applications is the same: a flexible, Linux-based controller that can run real-time automation alongside IT-grade communication, data logging, and analytics.
One of the most forward-looking parts of the conversation centers on PLCnext Technology partnerships. Companies like Festo and Yaskawa have taken the core PLCnext platform software and adapted it for their own hardware. Festo applies it to motion control; Yaskawa integrates it with drive systems. These partners get access to all the components Phoenix Contact has already built, including the OPC UA server, data logger, web server, and web-based management tools, and they layer their own unique capabilities on top.
Martin sees this collaborative model as the future. "Everybody's not reinventing the same thing over and over," he says. "We just all collaborate, as far as possible, to try and create the best platform possible." He also notes growing interest in running CODESYS on PLCnext hardware, something that was once impossible but is now available through the PLCnext Store. The platform continues to evolve toward greater interoperability and choice.
On AI, Martin is cautiously optimistic. He has seen code completion tools that can generate structured text or Python from a few comments, and Phoenix Contact's marketing team already uses AI to dub German-language training videos into English with lip-synced visuals. But he draws the line well short of autonomous plant control. "You wouldn't want an autonomous AI running your plant, or would you? I don't think so."
Martin Boers is a Technical Specialist at PLCnext Technology with Phoenix Contact, based in Germany. Originally trained as a chemical engineer in Australia, Martin spent the early part of his career modeling aluminum reduction processes before moving into industrial automation. He has been with Phoenix Contact for over two decades and is a key voice in the PLCnext Community, providing technical support and helping external partners adopt the PLCnext Technology platform.
PLCnext Technology is the open ecosystem for industrial automation from Phoenix Contact. It brings together open hardware, modular engineering software, a global community, and a digital software marketplace to bridge the worlds of IT and OT.
Digitalization and globalization are placing new demands on industrial automation. The precisely tailored design of the open automation system is just as important as flexible, modular expansion. In addition to standard programming of PLC systems in accordance with IEC 61131-3, parallel programming and the combination of programming languages such as C/C++, C#, and Matlab® Simulink® in real time is also possible with PLCnext Control. Accelerate your application development process with the free basic version of PLCnext Engineer, or use your familiar programming environment.
With simple cloud integration, the option to use open source software, and the ever-expanding expertise of the PLCnext Community, you will benefit from new forms of collaboration. The resulting solution apps, software modules, runtime systems, and function extensions are available in the PLCnext Store and save an enormous amount of time and money when creating applications. This makes PLCnext Technology the ideal ecosystem for your modern automation challenge.