Bosch Rexroth shared updates to its ctrlX automation platform during a recent media briefing, outlining how the Linux-based ctrlX OS supports a more modular, app-based approach to packaging machine controls.
For OEMs, the app-based model is designed to simplify control architecture while supporting faster changeovers, smaller engineering teams, and production lines built with equipment from multiple vendors.
Bosch Rexroth detailed how ctrlX OS can run across Bosch and third-party hardware. The approach allows OEMs to add functionality through applications rather than fixed control logic tied to programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
“Our ctrlX automation platform is an app-based system running on our various hardware or even other hardware because we have this ctrlX OS, which is a portable operating system that can run on different hardware,” said Dave Cameron, director of product and project management at Bosch Rexroth.
What an app-based approach means for packaging controls
ctrlX OS delivers motion, vision, connectivity, and data capabilities through software rather than tying functionality to a single control architecture. Like on a smartphone, applications can be added, updated, or removed as machine requirements change, without reworking the underlying system.
“It is very open and very scalable,” said Dave Boeldt, product manager at Bosch Rexroth, in an interview with Packaging OEM. “Security is number one, and then number two is the way that they have the openness to be able to connect to different devices. For packaging, we have the full spectrum.”
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That openness is supported through Bosch Rexroth’s ctrlX World ecosystem, which now includes more than 110 technology partners. Applications support standard industrial protocols and mixed-vendor requirements.
One example is the Device Bridge app, which allows machine data to be collected without changes to existing machine programming. Data can be visualized using tools such as InfluxDB and Grafana dashboards, supporting packaging use cases such as predictive maintenance, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) tracking, and energy monitoring across mixed-vendor production lines.
The platform also works with third-party controls/PCs from Wago, Advantech, and Dell.
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Bringing AI and vision to the controller
Bosch Rexroth is also extending intelligence to the controller level through artificial intelligence (AI) and vision applications running on ctrlX OS.
Recent additions include the Hailo-8 AI module and vision applications such as HD Vision and LumiScan. These tools are designed to support inspection tasks on packaging equipment, including fill-level verification, surface defect detection, and label inspection.
“AI has been a really big hot button item in today’s day of age with industrial manufacturing and adding features with sensing and vision,” said Garrett Wagg, product manager for controls at Bosch Rexroth.
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Bosch Rexroth has also outlined future AI tools focused on simplifying engineering and configuration tasks at the controller level. “In the future, you’ll be able to say, put together this motion profile, or something along those lines, into a PLC,” Boeldt said.
Balancing openness with built-in security
As packaging environments become more connected, Bosch Rexroth emphasized that cybersecurity is built directly into the ctrlX platform architecture. Security features include secure boot, sandboxed applications, a trusted platform module (TPM) chip, and VPN and firewall applications.
These protections are designed to support compliance with the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act, which introduces legally binding cybersecurity requirements for connected products beginning in 2027.
“With the Cyber Resilience Act, it’s shifting the voluntary best practices and guidelines that are now available and making them legally binding obligations that must be followed with any product that is connected to a network,” Boeldt said.
Bosch Rexroth said the ctrlX platform is designed to support increasingly software-driven packaging systems as OEMs balance flexibility, connectivity, and security requirements.
