Input/output devices are used to send and receive signals from the equipment that makes up your system. There is a wide range of I/O devices, such as remote terminal units (RTUs), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and I/O boards. Within each category of I/O device, there are several different brands (for example, Omron, Modicon, Allen-Bradley, and so on). Each brand uses a different protocol for communications.
In order for your VTS application to interpret the signals from a particular I/O device, it requires a translator to turn the data into an understandable format. This is the role of the basic I/O device driver tag.
VTS comes equipped with 7 standard I/O device driver tag types for your use. These are:
|
Device Driver Tag Type |
Description |
|
Allen Bradley |
Allen Bradley driver tags provide an interface to an Allen-Bradley programmable logic controller, and facilitate communication with the PLC via serial port, KT/SD I/O board, or TCP/IP. |
|
CIP |
The Control and Information Protocol driver tags provide an interface between VTS and hardware that used the CIP and/or the ENIP standards for communication. |
|
DDE |
DDE driver tags enable tags to read from and write to a local or network DDE server. These tags enable your VTS application and another running program (e.g. an Excel spreadsheet) to share the same data. |
|
DNP3 |
The DNP driver is a DNP 3.0 Master that implements all the objects defined in DNP subset level 3, except for the "Frozen Counter" type. |
|
Modicon |
Modicon driver tags provide an interface to a Modicon programmable logic controller and facilitate communication with the PLC via Serial RTU, Serial ASCII, or SA-85 I/O card for ModBus Plus communications. |
|
Omron |
Omron driver tags provide an interface to an Omron programmable logic controller, and facilitate communication via a serial port. |
|
OPC Client |
The OPC Client driver allows VTS to act as an OPC Client to an OPC Server, enabling the exchange of data from a VTS application to an OPC Server. |
|
Siemens S7 |
Provides an interface to Siemens PLCs of the following types: S7-200, S7-300 and S7-400 |