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Distribution of motion control commands over a network

DC CAFC
  • US 6,513,058 B2
  • Filed: 02/27/2001
  • Issued: 01/28/2003
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/30/1995
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A system for allowing an application program to communicate with any one of a group of supported hardware devices, the system comprising:

  • a software system operating on at least one workstation, the software system comprising at least one application program comprising a set of component functions defining a desired motion sequence, the desired motion sequence being comprised of primitive operations that are necessary to define the desired motion sequence and non-primitive operations that may be simulated using a combination of primitive operations, a core set of core driver functions, where each core driver function is associated with one of the primitive operations, an extended set of extended driver functions, where each extended driver functions is associated with one of the non-primitive operations, component code associated with each of the component functions, where the component code associates at least some of the component functions with at least some of the driver functions, a set of software drivers, where each software driver is associated with one of the hardware devices and comprises driver code for implementing the driver functions, and a control command generating module for generating control commands based on the component functions of the application program, the component code associated with the component functions, and the driver code associated with the software drivers; and

    a network communication protocol that allows the control commands to be communicated from the control command generating module on the at least one workstation to at least one of the supported hardware devices over a network.

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