LabVIEW and IO-Link – flexible connection to sensors and actuators

As we have already mentioned here, while LabVIEW is inherently strong at connecting analogue and digital signals, special solutions are required for communication with fieldbuses, such as our interface for the real-time Ethernet boards of Hilscher’s cifX family.

Sometimes, however, a complete fieldbus connection is not necessary and it is sufficient to connect intelligent sensors and actuators using point-to-point communication, e.g. via IO-Link.

This requires an IO-Link master that can be easily and flexibly adapted to different application requirements. To test the IO-Link AF2 sensors from Emerson Aventics, we chose the AL1320 IO-Link master from ifm with an IoT interface, which can be easily integrated into any application thanks to a JSON-based protocol.

The resulting solution in form of a LabVIEW library is of course available for other applications.

CONTACT:
Holger Mueller
Email: mueller@mueller-krahmer.de
Mobile: +49 160 / 287 7294