Today computers are used to control plenty different hardware systems both in laboratories and in the “real” world. Think of simple examples like automatic roller shutters that may be vital in keeping offices cool in summer while allowing for the maximum of light inside when the sun is occluded by clouds.
Most of the time things are way more complicated of course and soon real automation systems come into play providing intricate control and safety-related fail-safe mechanisms. Beckhoff ADS provides a means to communicate with such automation systems, often implemented as programmable logic controllers (PLC).
While many of these systems are Windows-based and provide rich programming environments on Windows they often provide interoperability with other programming languages and operating systems. In case of ADS there is a cross-platform open source C++ library provided by Beckhoff and even a python library (pyads) based on the C library for easy access of ADS devices.
ADS examples
This is great news because it allows you to choose your platform more freely and especially in science many organizations prefer Linux machines in their infrastructure. Here is an example using pyads to read a value from an ADS device:
import pyads
# The ip of the PLC
remote_ip = '192.168.0.55'
# This is the AMS network id. Usually consists of the IP address with .1.1 appended
remote_ads = '192.168.0.55.1.1'
# This is the ads port for the remote SPS controllers.
# Has nothing to do with TCP/IP ports!!!
ads_port = 851
# Set our local AMS network id to the client endpoint
# in the TwinCAT routing configuration
pyads.set_local_address('192.168.11.66.1.1')
with pyads.Connection(remote_ads, ads_port, remote_ip) as plc:
print(plc.read_by_name('GlobalStructure.live_bit', pyads.PLCTYPE_BOOL))
Remote Access
When developing for our customers using ADS it is often not feasible to have the PLCs and a realistic set of controlled hardware in our own offices. Fortunately it is possible to communicate with the ADS interface of the customers on-site PLC over VPN and SSH-tunneling.
There are some caveats on the way to working remotely against an ADS device, namely the port to be tunneled, the route on the PLC and the correct IPs and NetIds.
SSH-Tunneling the ADS communication
Setting up SSH tunneling is probably the most easy part using putty on Windows or plain OpenSSH local forwarding using config files. The important thing is that you need to tunnel TCP-Port 48898 and not the ADS port 851!
Configuring the PLC route
The ADS endpoint needs a AMS route setup for the machine you SSH into. Otherwise that machine you use to tunnel your requests will not be authorized to communicate to the ADS device. This is well documented and a standard workflow for the automation people but crucial for the remote access to work. We need the AMS Net Id from this step to finally setup the connection.
Connecting remotely using the SSH-Tunnel
After everything is prepared we need to adjust the connection parameters for our ADS client. Taking the example from above this usually means changing remote_ip and the local AMS Net Id:
# The ip the SSH-tunnel is bound to, usually localhost
remote_ip = '127.0.0.1'
# This is the AMS network id of the endpoint. Leave unchanged!
remote_ads = '192.168.0.55.1.1'
# Set our local AMS network id to the client endpoint in the TwinCAT routing config
# This represents our ssh host, not the local machine!
pyads.set_local_address('192.168.0.100.1.1')
Conclusion
Beckhoff ADS provides a state-of-the-art means of communicating to PLCs over the network. With a bit of configuration this can easily be done remotely in addition to on-site in a platform agnostic way.
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