Deployment and selection of the Target Systems / Devices

Concept

The TwinCAT Simulation Manager supports local as well as distributed scenarios. To deploy realtime functionalities in an environment form one to multiple resources (CPU), the application realizes the following groups of features:

The system can scales from pure local to full distributed environments. To maintain all relevant data of a simulation-project at a central location (mostly on the configurator PC), all the project data will be stored within the Simulation Manager project directory. This folder will then act as central data store. All referenced System Manager configurations and PLC Programs will be copied into the project cache during creation of the Simulation Manager project. The Application then acts on these copies, the originals are not touched anymore.

Selection of target systems

The Dialog 'Manage target systems' is opened via main menu 'Edit -> Select target Systems ...' (Figure 1).

Deployment and selection of the Target Systems / Devices 1: — Figure 1: Calling the "Select target systems" dialog.

The Dialog consists mainly of two list boxes (see Figure 2):

On the left side, all found target (TwinCAT) systems within the connected Ethernet network are listed (Broadcast search)
On the right side all participating systems of the TwinCAT Simulation Manager configuration are listed.

The list of targets within the TwinCAT Simulation Manager Configuration can be changed via the Buttons ">>" and "<<".

With pressing the "OK" Button, the list is accepted and the TwinCAT Simulation Manager loads all Current Configurations from the target systems plus the available PLC Symbol files and stores them in it's local cache for access. Afterward the Navigation window is updated.

Deployment and selection of the Target Systems / Devices 2: — Figure 2: Selection of the target systems

Assigment of Configurations

Deployment and selection of the Target Systems / Devices 3: — Figure 3: Context-menu entries for System Manager Configuration assignment (target system related)

Entry	Description
Download current Configuration ...	Downloads the current configuration from the selected target system and updates/overwrites the simulation-projekt cached data.
Delete ...	Removes the target system and its configuration from the simulation project.
Set target system ...	Sets a new address at the selected target configuration. The configuration will be assigned to a new target device.
Import *.tsm ...	Imports a configuration into the simulation project and sets the target system address of this imported configuration to the selected target address.
Export *.tsm...	Copies the selected System Manager configuration from the simulation project to an external folder.

Table 2: Context-menu entries for System Manager Configuration Assignment (target system related)

Assignment and deployment of PLC-Programs

Deployment and selection of the Target Systems / Devices 4: — Figure 4: Context-menu entries for PLC-Program assignment and deployment

Entry	Description
Create Bootproject	Creates the PLC program as bootproject on the target device.
Deploy PLC ...	Shifts the selected PLC-Program to another available runtime.
Import PLC Project ...	Imports a PLC-Program to the selected PLC-Runtime. The existing PLC-Program will be overwritten.
Export PLC Project ...	Export the PLC-Program from the selected PLC-Runtime into an external folder.
Add PLC Project ...	Adds a new PLC-Program to an available/free PLC-Runtime.
Delete ...	Removes the specified PLC-Program from the simulation configuration.

Table 3: Context-menu entries for PLC-Program assignment and deployment