The FCF is an ICS Framework component intended to help consortia in building the software of an FCS. The main goal of this component is to provide ready to use and configurable software entities to control and monitor instrument hardware functions and sensing systems. The FCF includes subcomponents along the three layers of the ICS three-tier architecture.

Main Components

The present version of the FCF covers the following main components:

A Device Manager implementation that can control a configurable number of devices from a standard ELT WS.
A generic GUI for the Device Manager that allow users to control devices graphically.
A set of Device Simulators capable of emulating the behaviour of a device controller and its interface within a WS.
A set of PLC libraries implementing the supported device controllers and their HMIs for local control.