Basic concepts
This chapter introduces basic concepts used in CommBridge.
Plugins
Section titled “Plugins”Plugins are the basic functional units, stored on devices as dynamic libraries. They can be added or removed safely after stopping the data flow. Installation packages include different plugin sets, with functions such as acquisition, computation, and upload.
| No. | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Modbus Client (Master) | Provides Modbus TCP Client and RTC Master capabilities for reading and writing other Modbus devices |
| 2 | OPCUA Client | Provides OPCUA Client capabilities for data acquisition |
| 3 | Siemens S7 Client | Acquires data from Siemens PLCs through the standard S7 protocol |
| 4 | Serial Communication | Reads and writes local serial ports using specified formats |
| 5 | Data Processing | Supports simple arithmetic expressions to process upstream data before forwarding downstream; acquisition nodes show real-time source data and processing nodes show processed data |
| 6 | MQTT Upload | Provides MQTT Client functionality to upload upstream data by publishing to a topic |
| 7 | MySQL Database Upload | Stores upstream data in a MySQL database |
| 8 | Modbus Data Center | Provides Modbus TCP Server functionality to store local data for acquisition by other devices |
| 9 | MSQLite Database Storage | Stores upstream data in a local SQLite database; no internal node scheme configuration is currently available |
Data flow
Section titled “Data flow”A data flow is a node management instance responsible for connections, starting/stopping, and exception handling for all nodes. Drag and connect nodes to configure data flow between nodes, sending upstream data downstream, such as from an acquisition plugin to an upload plugin.