featherlite S7 interface

The S7 interface package is a bundle of components to connect the execution control functionality of the featherlite core package with a Simatic S7 shop floor controller.

The S7 interface package provides all components required to connect to a Simatic S7 PLC via TCP/IP, send and receive telegrams and to map featherlite control events to PLC components. In featherlite applications the link between the execution control runtime components and the shop floor controller is handled by policies called execution and confirmation policies.

The S7 interface server package adds the execution policies and other components required to integrate the featherlite execution control flow with a Simatic S7 controller. The package contains the Connection Handler with acceptors and connectors required to manage TCP/IP connections and the message exchange, converter and parser classes needed to map featherlite control events to protocol-specific exchange data and protocol-specific core telegram classes.

The S7 interface client plug-in adds UIs to support development and runtime monitoring to the featherlite rich client, i.e. a view to monitor the telegrams sent to and received from the PLC and a view to send test telegrams from dialogs. Using the S7 interface server and client components you are able to quickly implement applications to control complex processes on the shop floor (material flows, production schedules, and so on) through workflow modelling and featherlite execution control. Communication between control applications and the shop floor PLC controller is always project-specific.

The S7 interface provide a basis to enable developers to quickly create communication between control applications and controllers by focusing on logical mapping. The execution policies shipped with the package can be extended by overriding the core execution policies and by configuring the logical mapping of control events to PLC components. On the other hand, the back-end infrastructure used to manage TCP/IP connections as well as the UI components to monitor, test and simulate can be used immediately.