Susi Api Introduction; Watchdog Api; Hardware Monitor Api - Advantech ARK-1220 User Manual

B.1

SUSI API Introduction

To provide programmers with easier, more convenient access to hardware, Advan-
tech has released a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) in the form of
a program library. This program library is known as the Secured and Unified Smart
Interface, or SUSI for short.
SUSI provides a uniform API for application programmers to access the hardware
functions in different OS and on different Advantech platforms. Application program-
mers can invoke the functions exported by SUSI instead of calling the drivers directly.
The benefit of using SUSI is portability. The same set of APIs is defined for various
Advantech platforms and implemented on different OS.
The hardware functions currently supported by SUSI are grouped into various cate-
gories and APIs, such as the Watchdog API and Hardware Monitor API. The most
common of the SUSI APIs are briefly described below.
B.1.1

Watchdog API

A watchdog timer (abbreviated as WDT) is a hardware device that triggers an action,
e.g., system reboot, if the system does not reset the timer within a specific period of
time. The WDT API in SUSI provides developers with functions such as starting the
timer, resetting the timer, and setting the timeout value if the hardware requires cus-
tomized timeout values.
B.1.2

Hardware Monitor API

The hardware monitor (abbreviated as HWM) is a system health supervision capabil-
ity achieved by placing certain I/O chips along with sensors for inspecting the target
of interests for certain condition indexes, such as temperature and voltage.
However, due to the inaccuracy of many commercially available hardware monitoring
chips, Advantech has developed a unique scheme for hardware monitoring that uses
a dedicated micro-processor with algorithms specifically designed for providing accu-
rate, reliable, real-time data.
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