Advantech MIO-2361 Series, User Manual, Page: 54 / 90

MIO-2361 User Manual 44
4.1 S/W Introduction
We enable Windows embedded software products on Advantech platforms to more
effectively support the embedded computing community. Customers are freed from
the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors (Hardware suppliers, System integrators,
Embedded OS distributor) for projects. Our goal is to make Windows embedded soft-
ware solutions easily and widely available to the embedded computing community.
4.2 Driver Installation
4.2.1 Windows 10 Professional
To install the drivers, insert the driver CD into DVD-ROM, select the drivers that need
to be installed, then launch setup file under each function folder and follow the Driver
Setup instructions to complete the process.
4.2.2 Other OS
To install the drivers for another Windows OS or Linux, please browse the CD to run
the setup file under the appropriate OS folder(s).
4.3 Value-Added Software Services
Software API: An interface that defines the ways by which an application program
may request services from libraries and/or operating systems. Provides not only the
underlying drivers required but also a rich set of user-friendly, intelligent and inte-
grated interfaces, which speeds development, enhances security and offers add-on
value for Advantech platforms.
4.3.1 SUSI Introduction
To make hardware easier and more convenient to access for programmers, Advan-
tech has released a suite of API (Application Programming Interface) in the form of a
program library. The program Library is called Secured and Unified Smart Interface
or SUSI for short.
In modern operating systems, user applications cannot access hardware directly so
drivers are required. User space applications access hardware through drivers. Dif-
ferent operating systems usually define different interface for drivers. This means
that user space applications call different functions for hardware access in different
operating systems. To provide a uniform interface for accessing hardware, an
abstraction layer is built on top of the drivers and SUSI is such an abstraction layer.
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, I
2
C, SMBus,
GPIO, and VGA control. Each category of API in SUSI is briefly described below.