The FDT standard is enhanced for Factory Automation

The FDT Group announces that it has publically released the Factory Automation annex to provide enhanced features for PLC programming tools that support the FDT standard. The annex provides a bus independent interface to enable PLC engineering tools to map generic I/O signals to variables in an IEC 61131-3 program.

“The significant growth of Factory Automation applications which incorporate the FDT standard caused us to look carefully at adding more capability to support Factory Automation vendors and end users,” comments Manfred Brill, Chairman of Factory Automation Marketing for the FDT Group. “Most PLC applications are conceptually based on a process image that is cyclically updated by a bus master device and accessed via the PLC system vendor’s specific optimized drivers for the target runtime system. This annex provides a consistent mapping of layout information between the communications DTM for the bus master device and the PLC system.”

The FDT Factory Automation annex supports a bottom-to-top approach where first the I/O signals are configured at the individual device DTMs before they are made available at the master DTM as FDT Factory Automation process channels. The annex also provides a well-defined way to identify a specific field bus interface of a PLC in the event there are multiple interfaces available.

The FDT Factory Automation annex is available for immediate use in all FDT factory automation applications. Contact the FDT Group for further information.