Applicom driver, basics

Caution

With WinCC OA Version 3.11 the support for the Applicom driver for Linux is discontinued!

Applicom is among other things a producer of peripheral cards and software tools and is widely used in the automation technology. The Applicom products are compatible with many popular field bus systems and communication components like:

Ethernet TCP/IP (Industrial Ethernet, Modbus, Allen Bradley, ...)
Serial connections (RK512, Modbus, Allen Bradley, ...)
...

It is possible to communicate with large amount of industrial peripheral devices (programmable logic controllers, input and output modules, variable speed drives, ...) in an easy and transparent way by using Applicom products.

The Applicom interfaces can administer all communication tasks like reading/writing, detecting status changes e.g. without recourse to the CPU of the computer via the concept, based on intelligent cards. The decoding of the protocol is handled on an own CPU on the communication card.

The Applicom driver accesses the Applicom services via a protocol independent API (Application Programming Interface) interface. All protocols supported by Applicom can be covered by one single driver via this implementation in WinCC OA. The addressing of the single elements is protocol specific as with the PLCs.

Applicom provides at the moment around 20 different communication cards for PC systems. A total of over 30 different communication protocols (PLC direct connections, Field bus systems, Ethernet ...) can be covered. The WinCC OA Applicom driver works in principle with all these protocols since it is based on a uniform API. New configuration files are only needed for the conversion of the peripheral address between device-specific format and the internal Applicom format.

Following communications with the WinCC OA driver are implemented and tested at the moment:

Profibus MPI
Profibus S7
Siemens S7 Industrial Ethernet
Schneider Modbus TCP/Open Modbus (Ethernet)
Omron FINS TCP-IP
GE Fanuc SRTP
Allen Bradley Ethernet/IP

Note

The WinCC OA Applicom driver supports the "Applicom-API". Communication via cards and protocols that use the "ApplicomIO-API" (e.g. DeviceNet, Interbus S) is not supported. Furthermore the product line SST is not supported and there are some restrictions when using Direct-Link products!

Client/Server and Master/Slave

In normal operation the Applicom card will be the Master/Client in the used bus as usual for a SCADA system. This means that the communication requests are sent by the Applicom card. For this case you have to configure "server" devices in the Applicom console since the peripheral devices operate as server.

Applicom supports also the Slave/Server mode for different protocols. This means that the peripheral device initiates the operation. This is so e.g. for spontaneous data. For this purpose, "client" devices have to be configured in the Applicom console.

See the Applicom Online Help for further information.

Applicom products

In the Applicom products there is a difference between an HW solution (card) and SW solution (Software stack). Applicom provides furthermore a number of software tools for the configuration of the bus system as well as diagnostics and debugging. You can test the function of the communication between the card and the periphery as well as single read or write access with it. These tools (e.g. ReadWait, WriteWait) are installed on the computer when installing the Applicom software.

Note

The most of the Applicom tools are not available for the software stack.

Layer model

In the following you can find the design of the connection to the periphery via Applicom products:

WinCC OA
Applicom driver
API
[Applicom card] or [Applicom software stack]
Periphery

These form basically two transaction ways:

Chapter	Description
Applicom driver, basics	Introduction and links to other chapters
Requirements and installation	Requirements and installation of the Applicom driver
Configuration of the Applicom driver	The connection to Applicom card and periphery is established via this panel.
Defining the peripheral addresses of the Applicom driver	Panel for configuring peripheral addresses.
Access functions and polling	Description of the access functions (read, write etc.), interface, database and polling of the Applicom driver
Rules of the address transformation	Functionality and structure of the Applicom configuration file which converts protocol dependent addresses into independent ones.
Specific features with the communication	Notes and particular tips when using the Applicom driver with some controllers
Example for the Applicom driver	Stepwise instructions for connection establishment with the WinCC OA Applicom driver and Siemens S7 300
Internal data points of the Applicom driver	Data point elements of the internal data points
Possible config entries of the Applicom driver	Description of the config entries for the Applicom driver
Details on the Applicom driver	Description of the debug levels, transformations, alive mechanism and further important information
Summary and relevant links	Links to other relevant chapters

V 3.11 SP1