Integrating incompatible hardware and software systems

Integration of existing physical systems and hardware controlled systems such as machinery, HVAC, door locks, power distribution, pumps, etc, with newly developed software designed to control these systems presents interesting problems. Many of these large systems cannot be replaced with newer systems to enable integrated software control, or such replacement is not feasible, leading to the need to bridge the gap between the existing hardware system and the software which will control it. Consideration of this problem, a paradigm for design and development of such a system to bridge the gap, and a case study involving a robot arm and the SR4 robot will be used to illustrate and present the problem.