Rockwell Automation Publication ICSTT-RM448J-EN-P - April 2018
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The AADvance Safety Controller
Chapter 2
The AADvance Workbench
and Software Development
Environment
The AADvance software lets you design one complete control strategy, and
then target parts of the strategy to individual controllers. Interaction between
the resources is automatic, significantly reducing the complexity of
configuration in a multi-resource system. Programs can be simulated and tested
on the workstation computer before downloading to the controller.
The workstation software is compliant with the IEC-61131 industrial
standard and has several powerful features:
• the regulation of the flow of control decisions for an interacting
distributed control system
• providing for the consistency of data
• providing a means for synchronous operation between devices
• eliminating the need to have separate synchronous schemes
• easing the development and maintenance of robust systems
The Workbench is a software development environment for a controller. It lets
you create local and distributed control applications using the five languages of
IEC 61131-3. (Instruction List (IL) and Sequential Function Chart (SFC)
languages are not supported by AADvance Workbench 2.x). Engineers can use
one language or a combination that best suits their knowledge and
programming style and the type of application.
The Workbench is a secure development environment. There is also a Program
Enable key that must be plugged into the processor base unit to allow the user
to modify and download the application resource or access the AADvance
Discover tool to set or change the controller IP address. The Program Enable
Key when it is removed protects the application from unauthorized access.
The development environment includes:
• tools for program development
• program documentation
• function block library management
• application archiving
• database configuration
• import/export utilities
• on-line monitoring
• off-line simulation and controlled on-line changes
• Programs can be simulated and tested on the computer before
downloading to the controller hardware. Also supplied are a set of
configuration tools that enables you to define the hardware architecture
in the software; set up the processor functionality; and connect
application variables to the Workbench application resource program
that will monitor processor and I/O module status information and
report I/O channel data values to the Workbench. Resource Control
applications can be distributed across several hardware platforms,
communicating with each other through secure networks.
