What Are the Different Communication Techniques Using Logos and FieldPoint?

Hardware: FieldPoint Problem: I need to communicate with my FieldPoint I/O modules distributed on the network and I would like to know which different techniques can I use eather with LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI, eather with my Real-Time controller. Solution: Every controller in the FieldPoint range can be used as a slave Distributed I/O system, whereby a host PC is able to read and update I/O channels on the modules connected to the controller. LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI have specific API's (sets of functions) for performing this task and are the preferred method of communicating with the I/O channels in this situation. The following illustration shows an example of the LabVIEW function for reading from a FieldPoint I/O channel.

Logos is a protocol designed by National Instruments for sending data between networked computers. It can be used to read values from FieldPoint I/O channels and published FieldPoint RT tags, but only if an Ethernet controller is used, such as a FP-160x, FP20xx, or cFP-18xx, cFP-20xx. When using the Ethernet controller modules, you can also use Logos to access these channels using the DataSocket functions, as shown below.

As can be seen from this image, a specific syntax exists. logos:// [IP Address of Module] /FP/ [bank where I/O module resides] [type] / [Channel on Module] Therefore, the above example communicates with the controller at IP address: 130.164.166.41. Then it accesses the data item on bank 2 which is a CTR (counter) module and channel 0 on that module. While you can use this method to communicate with your slave Ethernet FieldPoint controller, there is no advantage over using the standard FieldPoint functions within LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI. The usefulness of this approach can be seen when you are using a Real-Time controller (FP-20xx/cFP-20xx "RT Series"). These "intelligent" controllers can run LabVIEW applications under a deterministic Real-Time operating system, and communicate with their connected I/O modules. However, Logos can provide an easy way to access the I/O channels of ANOTHER FieldPoint Ethernet bank elsewhere on the network (regardless of whether it is a slave unit such as an FP-1600/1601, cFP-1804/1808 or an intelligent controller in the FP-20xx/cFP-20xx "RT Series"). This is where the Logos method can be used to read those channels, using DataSocket Read and DataSocket Write functions in your LabVIEW application on the intelligent controller. While Logos can read and write the I/O channels directly, you can also use it to read or write to programmatically published data from a FieldPoint FP-20xx/cFP-20xx "RT Series" controller. To publish the data item on this controller you use Publish Data.vi (installed with FieldPoint RT support). You can then read this new data item from another controller or PC on the network using DataSocket. In this case the syntax for the URL is slightly different again as can be seen in the following image:

Therefore the syntax is as follows:

logos:// [IP Address of Module] /LV/ [Block Name specified in Publish Data.vi] / [Item Name specified in Publish Data.vi] A LabVIEW example of Logos can be found in the first link in the Related Links section of this KnowledgeBase. An advanced treatment of this entire topic can be found in the second link in the Related Links section.