PCaPAC2022 - List of Authors (Varlec, J.)

Paper	Title	Page
THPP2	EPICS Module for Beckhoff ADS Protocol	31
THP03	use link to see paper's listing under its alternate paper code
	J. Varlec, Ž. Oven, J. Varlec COSYLAB, Control System Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia
	With increasing popularity of Beckhoff devices in scientific projects, there is an increasing need for their devices to be integrated into EPICS control systems. Projects often want to use Beckhoff PLCs for applications that have to handle a large amount of signals with fast cycle times. So, how can we connect Beckhoff devices to EPICS control systems without sacrificing performance? Beckhoff offers multiple possibilities when it comes to interfacing with their PLCs or industrial PCs, such as modbus, OPC UA, or ADS protocols. While all of these could be used for the usual use cases, we believe that for more data intensive applications, ADS works best. For this reason, Cosylab developed an EPICS device support module that implements advanced ADS features, such as ADS sum commands, which provide fast read/write capabilities to your IOCs.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-PCaPAC2022-THPP2
About •	Received ※ 04 October 2022 — Revised ※ 05 October 2022 — Accepted ※ 15 February 2023 — Issue date ※ 18 February 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

FRO12	Autoparam, a Generic Asyn Port Driver with Dynamic Parameters	98
	J. Varlec COSYLAB, Control System Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia
	Implementing EPICS device support for a specific device can be tricky; implementing generic device support that can integrate different kinds of devices sharing a common interface is trickier still. Yet such a driver can save a lot of time down the road. A well-known example is the Modbus EPICS module: the same support module can be used to integrate any device that speaks the Modbus protocol. It is up to the EPICS database to map device registers to EPICS records. Because no changes to the driver code are needed to integrate a device, a lot of effort is saved. At Cosylab, we often encounter device controllers that speak bespoke protocols. To facilitate development of generic drivers, we wrote the Autoparam EPICS module. It is a base class derived from asynPortDriver that handles low-level details that are common to all generic drivers: it creates handles for device data based on information provided in EPICS records and provides facilities for handling hardware interrupts. Moreover, it strives to provide a more ergonomic API for handling device functions than vanilla asynPortDriver.
	Slides FRO12 [1.653 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-PCaPAC2022-FRO12
About •	Received ※ 27 September 2022 — Accepted ※ 15 February 2023 — Issue date ※ 20 February 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

Paper

Title

Page

THPP2

EPICS Module for Beckhoff ADS Protocol

31

THP03

use link to see paper's listing under its alternate paper code

J. Varlec, Ž. Oven, J. Varlec
COSYLAB, Control System Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia

With increasing popularity of Beckhoff devices in scientific projects, there is an increasing need for their devices to be integrated into EPICS control systems. Projects often want to use Beckhoff PLCs for applications that have to handle a large amount of signals with fast cycle times. So, how can we connect Beckhoff devices to EPICS control systems without sacrificing performance? Beckhoff offers multiple possibilities when it comes to interfacing with their PLCs or industrial PCs, such as modbus, OPC UA, or ADS protocols. While all of these could be used for the usual use cases, we believe that for more data intensive applications, ADS works best. For this reason, Cosylab developed an EPICS device support module that implements advanced ADS features, such as ADS sum commands, which provide fast read/write capabilities to your IOCs.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-PCaPAC2022-THPP2

About •

Received ※ 04 October 2022 — Revised ※ 05 October 2022 — Accepted ※ 15 February 2023 — Issue date ※ 18 February 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

FRO12

Autoparam, a Generic Asyn Port Driver with Dynamic Parameters

98

J. Varlec
COSYLAB, Control System Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Implementing EPICS device support for a specific device can be tricky; implementing generic device support that can integrate different kinds of devices sharing a common interface is trickier still. Yet such a driver can save a lot of time down the road. A well-known example is the Modbus EPICS module: the same support module can be used to integrate any device that speaks the Modbus protocol. It is up to the EPICS database to map device registers to EPICS records. Because no changes to the driver code are needed to integrate a device, a lot of effort is saved. At Cosylab, we often encounter device controllers that speak bespoke protocols. To facilitate development of generic drivers, we wrote the Autoparam EPICS module. It is a base class derived from asynPortDriver that handles low-level details that are common to all generic drivers: it creates handles for device data based on information provided in EPICS records and provides facilities for handling hardware interrupts. Moreover, it strives to provide a more ergonomic API for handling device functions than vanilla asynPortDriver.

Slides FRO12 [1.653 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-PCaPAC2022-FRO12

About •

Received ※ 27 September 2022 — Accepted ※ 15 February 2023 — Issue date ※ 20 February 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)