FEATURE EMBEDDED TECHNOLOGY A GOAL FOR THE INTERNET of THINGS
Ognen Basarovski and Andreas Schwope from Renesas Electronics look at the complexity of industrial real-time communication and ways to overcome the challenges for solutions within the scope of the IoT
W
ith the increasing importance of IoT and Industry 4.0
communication stacks and drivers are not sufficient any longer as a tool for firmware developers. Due to increased demands on performance, complexity and flexibility, a middleware is mandatory to fulfil future communication tasks between Real- Time and IT.
GENERIC OPEN ABSTRACTION LAYER (GOAL)
Industrial Ethernet - for example, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT or POWERLINK need a system that cannot be adequately addressed by simply retrofitting a protocol library. This means, for example, that various protocols require an integrated switch and resource management. Furthermore, the combination of industrial real-time communication in conjunction with the well-known fieldbus systems such as CANopen, MODBUS or PROFIBUS is arbitrarily difficult, since physically a fundamentally different transmission medium is deployed here. Industrial Ethernet networking is a
development philosophy that is already influencing hardware and software architecture. The protocol library is an important element but requires system-wide assistance to work efficiently. The Generic Open Abstraction Layer ( GOAL) technology (middleware) is aimed at solving this problem and ensures the highest level of availability through modular scalability. Already the basic GOAL version offers extensive contents that is optimally adapted to the individual requirements (Figure 1). These are basically divided into three core areas which can be summarised under the terms network management, access/list management and configuration management respectively. The configuration management area
plays a central role in configuring the necessary parameters within the respective CPU/MCU environment. This includes the central administration of configuration variables, identification of variables by modules and IDs, callbacks for value checks and value changes as well as the loading/saving of variables.
28 JULY/AUGUST 2018 | ELECTRONICS
In addition, variables can be marked as temporary and locked. Another major advantage is the possibility of integrating customer storage systems. Net protocols such as PTP, DLR, SNMP, IEEE802.1x and RSP are supported extensively.
CORE-TO-CORE COMMUNICATION Often CPU/MCUs are used, which are not able to meet the requirements of modern communication technologies but are ideally suited for the respective application. Development engineers may not want to switch to completely new platforms. For such a case GOAL offers the Core-to-Core communication module (Figure 2).
Figure 1:
GOAL structure interface to the operating system
PROFINET network load tests. Towards the application, the
On this basis and depending on the availability of the MCU communication protocols such as CANopen, EtherCAT, PROFINET, EtherNetIP, POWERLINK, MODBUS TCP can be used individually or as a multi-protocol solution. The configuration management module
included in GOAL is supported by an extensive optional tool chain. The tool chain ensures easy connection of the protocols to the respective application (EDS, GSD, and ESI). Today, the decision for a
microcontroller or CPU platform (possibly also MCU/CPU families) is significantly influenced by the available software support. The industrial communication
middleware takes over the handling of Ethernet communication in the network and addresses industrial Ethernet- specific peculiarities, such as the handling of the system with the
Figure 2:
GOAL – Core-to-Core communication
industrial communication middleware offers interfaces for docking the protocol libraries and thus for simple handling of multi-protocol solutions out of a project. The handling of the multi-protocol approach becomes really effective through an own variable management in the industrial communication middleware. This allows different applications and not only protocol libraries to access the pool of variables. Industrial communication middleware is not intended to replace an RTOS (or OS) but rather as an OS supplement and thus as a functional extension for industrial Ethernet and the necessary specifics. In combination with bare metal systems, industrial communication middleware is a valuable corner stone for the system. The savings in time and the gains in the system security are considerable. In particular, on embedded systems only the use of an industrial communication middleware can make the implementation possible. Industrial communication middleware is not limited to the communication only - the actual application on the entire platform also benefits from the middleware. The greatest added value is achieved when the industrial communication middleware offers its inherent additional value right from the start during the entire development phase in order to be prepared for future requirements and extensions. The GOAL platform provides either
connectivity between a multi-protocol communication processor (such as RZ/N1L or R-IN32M3) and a traditional host MCU or, in the highly integrated RZ/N1D and RZ/N1S SoCs, communication between the communication and application blocks. As the GOAL target interface is available for all platforms based on the R-IN Engine, developers can use the same software on multiple SoCs based on the R-IN Engine - the R-IN32M3, the RZ/T1 or the RZ/N1 product family.
Renesas Electronics Europe
www.renesas.com T: +49 89 38070 216
/ ELECTRONICS
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