Industrial internet connected control system

A system comprising:

• a cloud platform including a plurality of platform computing devices;
• a processor having two or more independent processing units, including a first independent processing unit and a second independent processing unit, the processor further comprising a hypervisor element segmenting the processor into at least two virtualized environments;
• a field agent executing, on the first independent processing unit, within the first virtualized environment, the field agent configured to operatively communicate with the cloud platform and provide control data from the cloud platform to a real-time controller controlling field devices coupled to IO controllers each providing deterministic real-time control processes for a field device;
• and
• the real-time controller executing, on the second independent processing unit, within the second virtualized environment, wherein the real-time controller is configured to execute one or more control applications to control one or more field devices, wherein the field agent and the real-time controller execute in parallel and independent of one another.

A method implemented via a first computing device comprising at least one processor in communication with at least one memory device, the method comprising:

• instantiating in the first computing device, via a hypervisor element, a first virtualized environment and a second virtualized environment;
• executing, at the first computing device, in the second virtualized environment, a real-time embedded controller for control of a connected equipment, wherein the real-time embedded controller executes a first real-time control application;
• executing, at the first computing device, in the first virtualized environment, a field agent that is communicatively coupled to the real-time embedded controller, the field agent being configured to communicate, via a network interface, over a bi-direction communication, with one or more platform computing devices and provide control data from the one or more platform computing devices to the real-time embedded controller, wherein the field agent executes a second control application;
• interrogating, via the field agent, a pre-defined computing device of the one or more platform computing devices for updatable instructions associated with either the first real-time control application or the second control application;
• and
• in response to determining presence of a given updatable instructions, retrieving, via the field agent, the updatable instructions.