R&D Of Configuration Software And Its Application In Visual Programming Of CNC

In Canon System Solutions Shanghai Co. Ltd., configuration software is used in many industrial control projects. As a main developer of these projects, the author of this paper has made a lot of research on configuration software's development around the world.For now, there're 4 main configuration software, which are Intouch from Wonderware, Fix from Intellution, Citech from CIT and WinCC from Siemens. These software are all running on 32-bit Windows system with OPC (OLE for Process Control) and script language support. But high price is the fatal shortcoming for above configuration software. According to the IO points it may take 50,000 to 150,000 RMB for one license. Furthermore, these software are too full functional (i.e. too heavy) to run efficiently. User must lift up computer hardware spec to run these software.For this reason, developing a light weight, high performance, low price and general deployment configuration software is put into schedule. The author of this paper participated in the whole process of the development of the C-through configuration software.The goal of this paper is to design and implement C-through Configuration Software by using Container-Control-Driver 3-tier architecture. For the development object of light weight, high performance, low price and general deployment, OOD/OOP methods are applied in implementing this software.Firstly, by using USE CASE analysis from the requirement of the configuration software, a simple but extensible Container-Control-Driver 3-tier architecture is designed to accomplish the monitor and control part in a automation control system. Secondly, this paper examines the 3-tier architecture by using OO method and explains the relationship between Container, Control and Driver.Thirdly, based on the purpose of light weight, high performance, low price and general deployment, this paper makes a study of ATL/COM technology, which is used to implement the 3-tier architecture.Light weight requires that the main program is less than 150KB in bytes and each control is less than 30 KB. Development method other than ATL will take a lot of time to implement all the interfaces (IOleInplaceFrame, IOleInPlaceUIWindow, IOleClientSite, IOleInPlaceSite, IOleControlSite, IDispatch, IProperytNotifySink, etc.) defined by ActiveX specifications of Microsoft Corporation.High performance requires average I/O access time is less than 20ms, and the monitor and control system can run smoothly even with more than 100,000 data points. Analysis of the C-through's performance data indicates that the bottleneck of the system lies in data exchange between Driver and Device, so the use of COM in-process server and data notification method will highly improve the performance.Low price requires the price of all the software components is under 10000RMB, which makes more widespread in most developing countries. General deployment requires easy installation of new Controls and Drivers without modification of any existing programs. By using COM technology it's easy to find the needed third party ActiveX Controls.Finally, this paper demonstrates how C-through is used for developing a Visual Programming software for CNC (Computer Numeric Control) system. By using existing C-through controls and creating a new ActiveX control, which can generate CNC program by setting some parameters (Work, Axis, Tool and Compensation, etc.) and emulate the manufacture process, the Visual Programming software is fully implemented and highly accepted by customer.In this paper, not only the C-through Configuration Software is put forward and implemented by using Container-Control-Driver 3-tier architecture, but also the software is successfully applied in a project of visual programming of CNC. These works are commonly helpful to the development of other industrial control projects.