Building automation systems - Intelligent Buildings and Building Automation - page 36

field control stations. A field control station typically involves a power con-
nection, one or more network connections, connection port for programming
(such as connection to the serial port or USB port of a PC), input and output
connections and backup battery.
3.3.2 Programming platform and environment
In the early stages, the program for digital controllers was typically cre-
ated and then fed into the ROMs or EPROMs using special programming
facilities. The ROMs and EPROMs were then inserted into the controllers
for operation to occur. Modern control stations are typically programmed
with the support of user-friendly software tools, without the need for special
programming facilities.
The programming software tools may be installed on the central computer
stations where the programmers can configure control stations, program the
control station and download the control software into the control stations
from the central computer stations through the network. Some of the pro-
gramming tools used on the central computer stations are separate software
packages and others are combined with the monitoring or management
software tools.
As the control stations governing different tasks integrated within the
same BA network or BA system may be from different manufacturers, it is
difficult to share the same programming tool on the central computer sta-
tions. Therefore, many control stations are provided with programming tools
which typically run on PCs or notebook computers, linked to the control
stations directly via the serial port, USB port, or the like, when programming
them.
Programming a control station typically involves two main categories
of tasks, configuring the control station, and developing and downloading
the application program to the control station. Typical configuration tasks
include: defining a station that runs as the server, defining channels and
controllers, defining points and downloading the configuration database to
the server.
The programming environments provided by the programming tools of
different suppliers may be very different, and can be grouped into three
categories:
1 graphic/symbolicformat;
2 template or table format;
3 text format high-level language programming.
In all cases, the programming tools should provide the functions to enable
conversion of the programs made by the programmers into machine lan-
guage, which the microprocessor can execute, and download them into the
control stations.