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Communication between FlexPendant and controller

COM technology

The FlexPendant SDK uses an internal Controller API based on COM technology to communicate with the controller. This API uses sockets and TCP/IP (for more information, see About terms and acronyms ) towards both real and virtual controllers.

Calls from the FlexPendant SDK to the controller are synchronous, that is, are done immediately through the COM servers. This increases execution speed and causes less overhead, which is important on a resource limited device.

Resource identification

All controller resources, both real and virtual, are described using object based hierarchy. Each resource is uniquely identified, including information about which controller owns the resource by use of the unique system id or IP address of the controller.

The controller is the top object of the hierarchy:

"/<Controller>/<Domain>/<SubDomain1>/<SubDomain2>/and so on"

Tip Tip
Error messages including such a path indicate where to look for the problem.
Hard real-time demands

The FlexPendant SDK cannot meet hard real-time demands. This is for several reasons:

  • Part of the API executes on a non-real-time operating system.

  • The controller sometimes has tasks to perform that have a higher right of priority.

Note Note

The FlexPendant SDK does not affect performance in a negative way. You should expect your custom application to perform like any other application on the ABB menu.