TCI - Tool Calling Interface

For Integration of PROFIBUS DP-Slaves and PROFINET IO-Devices in an engineering system, GSD files are used which must be provided by the device manufacturer. Syntax and semantics of these files are standardized so that the devices can be integrated independently of the manufacturer.

Besides this method, it is required for some equipment to provide a separate tool for parameter setting and diagnostics if the requirements for data input or visualization go beyond the scope of GSD means.

Today between these two methods no correlation exists so that the user of the Engineering System is faced with the following problems:
· He must have knowledge which tool is required for a particular device
· He has to enter the communication parameter of the device both in the engineering system and in the device specific tool and make sure to keep the parameter consistent.
· He must take care that both, engineering system and device specific tool, uses the same location for data storage because otherwise it will be difficult to archive the project data.

From the device manufacturer point of view, the following problems must be solved:
· He has to implement the communication functionality for each supported field bus system.
· A communication relation cannot be established by the tool if the target device is located in a different network and only a proprietary gateway interconnects the networks.

In order to fix these problems, a relation between the GSD based engineering system and the device specific tool is needed. This relation should cause only minimal dependencies between the involved tools – an easy version handling is required to ensure the interaction between different versions of the interface.

This interface is defined as “TCI- Tool Calling Interface” in this document which covers PROFINET IO, and PROFIBUS-DP. The fieldbus specific parts are described in separate documents. See corresponding annex.

Details:
Version: 1.0
Order No.: 2.602 / 2.612 / 7.602
Language: English

New Draft 1.1 for Review!

What is new with TCI specification version 1.1:
- New document TCI-Annex 2 Tool Calling Interface for PROFINET and
related sections in the documents TCI-spec and TCI-guideline.
- Examples and XSDs for Version 1.1 added.
- See the version handling for Version 1.0 and 1.1.
- TPF-File: Module and submodule reference added See also the related
UseCases (i.e. UcNewModuleDT..)
- TPF-File: BusCategory moved to SubsystemItem
- TPF-File: DeviceCommReference added to DeviceItem.
Now instead of the DeviceReference the DeviceCommReference is
used for identification at the TCI Communication Server.
- TPF-File: DisplayNameES added
- TPF-File: F_Block_ID and F_iPar_CRC added in relation to PROFIsafe V2.4

Details:
Version: Draft 1.1
Order No.: 2.602 / 2.612 / 2.622 / 7.602
Language: English

This draft is published for testing and review only. It must not be used for development purposes.
Comments to be submitted to www.profibus-project.com, PI-Review-Area, until 27th June 2008.

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