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Steps to perform industrial communication


The following steps provide a basic methodology for using the MIL Industrial Communication module:

  1. For applications communicating with a robot, perform the following steps:

    1. Allocate an Industrial Communication context, using McomAlloc(). The industrial communication context allows you to specify with which type of robot you will be communicating.

    2. Wait to receive a request for a new position from the robot using McomWaitPositionRequest().

    3. Perform some analysis and calculate a new position to send back to the robot.

    4. Send the new position to the robot using McomSendPosition().

  2. For applications communicating in slave configuration with a controller that uses a communications protocol standard (such as PROFINET), perform the following steps:

    1. If required, configure the controller's software so that the controller recognizes the local computer (computer running the MIL application) with the appropriate number of data tables (such as modules, data tables, assemblies). Note that the local computer should have a static IP address.

    2. On the local computer, enable and configure the industrial communication protocol service using the MILConfig utility's Communication item.

    3. Allocate an industrial communication context, using McomAlloc(). The industrial communication context allows you to specify with which type of protocol you will be communicating.

    4. Read data received from the controller during its last write cycle using the same communications protocol standard (such as PROFINET) as the context, using McomRead().

    5. Perform some analysis and calculate new data to write back to the controller.

    6. Write data to be read from the controller during its next read cycle, using McomWrite().

  3. Free your industrial communication context, using McomFree().

Note that industrial communication using PROFINET is only available when using a MIL system that has a hardware PROFINET engine; for example, a Matrox Indio system, a Matrox Iris GTR system, or a Host system running on a Matrox 4Sight GPm or EV6. Support for Matrox 4Sight EV6 requires driver update 93.

Note that if you are using the MIL application in a Modbus master configuration, the steps required to perform industrial communication are similar to that of a slave. To see the differences between the two, see the Setting up the environment to use the local computer as a Modbus controller and the Reading and writing to slave devices as a Modbus controller subsection of the Industrial communication with Modbus section later in this chapter.