IO-Device

Description

The PROFINET IO-Device driver allows the simulator to communicate with one or multiple pieces of equipment configured with a PROFINET IO-Controller interface. The simulator can instantiate to which controllers can connect and send read/write commands.

The PROFINET IO-Device interface can operate over TCP/IP using an Ethernet physical link connected to a network and be detected via DCP (Discovery and Configuration Protocol). The user must load a GSDML file and select the correct configuration that matches the network configuration of the card and IO controller(s).

Supported features

The following is a list of the features supported by the driver:

DCP
GSDML parser for configuration
Multiple cards support
Channel diagnosis
IO status (IOCS/IOPS)
Communication watchdog
Shared device access
MRP (Media Redundancy Protocol)

Configuration

The driver configuration is limited by the loaded GSDML in RT-LAB. The user is allowed to configure certain network configuration for DCP detection, such as IP address, netmask, gateway and MAC address.

Enabling advanced features, such as IO status and channel diagnosis will require new connections to be made by the user prior to loading the model.

General IO-Device configuration

The following parameters are the general configurations in which the user can interact with in order to configure the IO device.

GSDML file path	This parameter load and parse a GSDML file.
Device access point	Select the available device configurations from the loaded GSDML file.
Board ID	The board number where the card is installed on. The ID must be unique.
Enable IO status (IOCS/IOPS)	Enable the IO status to check the status of the communication channel
Channel Diagnosis	Enabling channel diagnosis will add a diagnosis data record to a specific submodule.
Enable watchdog	Enable the watchdog to verify if the asynchronous process is active or not and resets the communication channels in case of an anomaly.
Cycle rate (ms)	Data refresh rate of the IO-device tool
Use an RT core for asynchronous computation	If set to true, the driver reserves a real-time CPU core for its communication system and is able to handle a bigger amount of data. If set to false, the communication system defaults to core 0
Enable verbose mode	If enabled, additional information is displayed during the loading of the model.
Enable virtual mode	If enabled, the model can be executed even if this I/O interface is not compatible with the hardware configuration of the system. The connections between the model and the I/O interface will be done during the initialization, but the I/O interface will not do anything. The virtual mode can be used to troubleshoot problems on a system without having the required hardware, or to prepare a model with different I/O interfaces even if the final hardware platform is not available.

The user must load the GSDML file, select the desired Device access point and the correct board ID number where the card is installed.

Device Access Point

The DAP configuration is shown in the image below.

The five modifiable fields in this section are:

IP address*	Set the IP address of the card.
Network mask*	Set the network mask of the card.
Gateway address*	Set the gateway address of the card.
MAC address	Set the MAC address of the card. The address must be unique.

*These parameters can also be set on the IO controller side.

The rest of the parameters in Station parameters and Revision sections are originated from the previously selected device configuration of loaded GSDML file. These parameters are read-only, meaning they can not be modified.

Module Parameters

Device access point, Interface, Port 1 and Port 2 modules each have the following read-only parameters:

Subslot ID	Subslot ID number that corresponds to the module
Module ID	Module ID number that corresponds to the module
Submodule ID	Submodule ID number that corresponds to the module

Usable Module Parameters

The number of usable modules can be added or removed via the add / remove buttons on top.

Each usable module contains read-only parameters except Slot ID as shown below.

Slot ID	Slot ID number that corresponds to the usable module
Subslot ID	Subslot ID number that corresponds to the usable module
Module ID	Module ID number that corresponds to the usable module
Submodule ID	Submodule ID number that corresponds to the usable module
Provider data length	The provider data length, i.e. the length of the Input data of this submodule. This length describes the data sent by IO-Device and received by IO-Controller.
Consumer data length	The consumer data length, i.e. the length of the Output data of this submodule. This length describes the data sent by IO-Controller and received by IO-Device.

For each new usable module instance, the new OpInputs and OpOutputs must be configured and connected.

Connections

Once the driver has been configured as desired and associated with the proper model subsystem, the user will have to connect points in the model to points in the driver by using the designated RT-LAB GUI. This connection panel will show all the driver's and model's connectable points, once the model has been compiled.
The example model provided with RT-LAB is already packaged with connections between the driver and the model. It can be used as an example to understand how the connections between the model and the driver should be done.

The connection points depend on the number of usable modules, channel diagnosis enabled and IO status (IOCS/IOPS) enabled.

Under each category, the configured operations will show up with the names that have been given by the user in the driver configuration GUI. If the icon is blue, it is a IO device output that can be written by a IO controller and this signal is returned to the simulation at the beginning of each time step. It means that this signal needs to be connected to an OpInput block of the Simulink model.

If the icon is red, it is a model output. It means that this signal needs to be connected to an OpOutput block of the Simulink model.

With 'IO status (IOCS/IOPS)' enabled, additional connection points are available and can be used in the model to indicate if both IO device and controller are well connected and exchanging data.
With 'Channel Diagnosis' enabled, additional connection points are available and can be used in the model to send diagnosis data on a specific submodule to the IO controller.

Limitations

The following is a list of the limitations of the driver:

No alarm handling
No fast start-up
No multicast device-to-device communication
No support for iPar (parameter server)
No support for time synchronization
No support for ProfiDrive or ProfiSafe profiles