S7 TIA PROFINET Driver

Use the Communication driver to import variables from the symbols file of the project (Merker, Input, Output) or variables defined in the Data Blocks (DB).
The importer creates variables in the Supervisor with the same name as defined in the TIA Portal project and assigns the physical address to the
I/O physical address
 property of the variable.

Controller tags

You can load tags in the offline mode into
FactoryTalk Optix Studio
 from
ap13
 files.

Communication driver limitations

  • Technology
     objects are not imported.
  • UDT
     within a tag table is not imported.
  • IEC_UDCounter
     works when using its instance DB. It generates an error if it is started on a normal DB.
  • Slice access is not supported.
  • DTL
     is read-only.
  • The Communication driver does not support these TIA Portal data types.
    • DATE
    • TIME_OF_DAY
    • DATE_AND_TIME
    • LDT
    • UDT
  • Only one-dimensional arrays are managed. Multidimensional arrays are split in one-dimensional arrays. In this case, the name of the multidimensional array and a progressive index forms the name of each one-dimensional array.

Structures and User Data Types

If the structures used in a DB contain only basic data type members (not strings, arrays, Structures and User Data Types (UDTs), or other structures), they are imported into the RealTimeDB of the Supervisor as structure-type variables by creating their prototype structures.
If the structures and UDTs contain complex data types (such as arrays, strings, UDTs, or other structures), a variable structure is created (along with its template) and formed only by the contiguous simple data type elements. The rest of the structure or UDT is split into individual variables.
For example, assuming this UDT: 
TYPE UDT 1 STRUCT     Var1 : BOOL;     Var2 : WORD;     Var3 : INT;     Var4 : ARRAY  [0 .. 6 ] OF BYTE;     Var5 : INT;     Var6 : BYTE;  END_STRUCT ;END_TYPE
The importer creates a variable of the structure type (and its prototype) composed by members
Var1
,
Var2
,
Var3
 and then it creates three additional variables: the array
UDT_1_Var4
, the Sign Word
UDT_1_Var5
, and
UDT_1_Var6
 of a Byte type.
TIP: If you must decrease the number of imported variables, you can try to create structures and UDTs with composed data types (array variable) in the final positions, after the simple data type (byte, word, and so on).
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