there is no shortage of comprehensive texts today that provide authoritative coverage of any specific technology. however, developing products and solutions for modern industrial automation software increasingly requires the integration of expertise across many disciplines: object orientation, software engineering, component technology, open architecture, control engineering, data communication, networking, virtual instruments, database, fault tolerance, middleware, resource management, distributed and embedded real-time techniques, reconfiguration, soft computing, system integration, system readiness, and many others. in conceiving of and preparing this book, the authors have addressed the need for accessible treatment of the key trends that span multiple disciplines.
