Advantech EPC-S202, User Manual

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EPC-S202 User Manual 48
B.1 SUSI API Introduction
To make hardware easier and more convenient to access for programmers, Advant -
ech has released a suite of Application Programming Interfaces (API) in the form of a
program library. This program library is called Secured and Unified Smart Interface or
SUSI.
SUSI provides a uniform API for application programmers to access the hardware
functions in different Operating Systems and on different Advantech hardware plat -
forms.
Application programmers can invoke the functions exported by SUSI instead of call
-
ing the drivers directly. The benefit of using SUSI is portability. The same set of APIs
is defined for different Advantech hardware platforms. Also, the same API set is
implemented in different Operating Systems. This user's manual describes some
sample programs and the API in SUSI. The hardware functions currently supported
by SUSI can be grouped into a few categories including Watchdog and Hardware
Monitor. Each category of API in SUSI is briefly described below.
B.1.1 The Watchdog API
A watchdog timer (abbreviated as WDT) is a hardware device that triggers an action,
e.g. rebooting the system, if the system does not reset the timer within a specific
period of time. The WDT API in SUSI provides developers with functions such as
starting the timer, resetting the timer, and setting the timeout value if the hardware
requires customized timeout values.
B.1.2 The Hardware Monitor API
The hardware monitor (abbreviated as HWM) is a system health supervision capabil -
ity achieved by placing certain I/O chips along with sensors for inspecting the target
of interests for certain condition indexes, such as temperature and voltage etc.
However, due to the inaccuracy among many commercially available hardware mon
-
itoring chips, Advantech has developed a unique scheme for hardware monitoring -
achieved by using a dedicated micro-processor with algorithms specifically designed
for providing accurate, real-time, and reliable data content; helping protect your sys -
tem in a more reliable manner.