Onboard Programs - National Instruments 7344 User Manual

Onboard Programs

Note Refer to the Onboard Programming Functions section of the FlexMotion Software
Reference Manual, for detailed information on all of these onboard programming features.
© National Instruments Corporation
The 7344 controller has full onboard programmability with the capability
of executing up to 10 simultaneous motion programs in a real-time
preemptive multitasking environment.
This extremely powerful feature is designed for real-time applications that
need tight synchronization and/or minimum latency—from a motion or
other I/O event—and fast command execution.
You can execute the entire FlexMotion function set from onboard
programs. In addition, the onboard programs support basic math and data
operation functions on up to 120 general-purpose variables.
Onboard programs also offer high-level, event-based functions such as
Jump to Label on Condition and Wait on Condition, which allow you to
sequence and make decisions in your programs. Onboard programs can
even start and stop other onboard programs.
Implementing part or all of your motion application as an onboard program
or programs offloads the host PC from handling these real-time tasks and
events. This leaves the host PC more available for the other integrated tasks,
such as data acquisition, image processing, user interface, data analysis,
and/or overall measurement and automation system control.
Onboard programs can also isolate your application from the host PC's
non-real-time operating system. Only the bus power is required to correctly
execute an onboard FlexMotion program once it is started, and this program
continues to run even if the host PC hangs, assuming the host power supply
remains.
You can run onboard programs from RAM or optionally save them to flash
ROM. The 7344 controller has 64 KB of RAM and 128 KB of ROM
(divided into two 64 KB sectors) for program and object storage. You can
run programs from either RAM or ROM, but you cannot split programs
between the two, and you cannot split programs between the two 64 KB
ROM sectors. With an average command size of 10 bytes, a single program
can be as large as 6,400 commands. As another example, the 7344
controller can simultaneously execute 10 programs, five from RAM and
five from ROM, with each program up to 1,280 commands long.
4-9
Chapter 4 Functional Overview
7344 Hardware User Manual