Simatic PDM

January 16th, 2008

PDM Logo

The Simatic Process Device Manager (PDM) is a tool that is used to configure industrial process devices, such as sensors, actuators or network components. It is a component of the Simatic family, released by Siemens Automation & Drives.

PDM uses the Electronic Device Description Language as a hub between the user and the device. With slight exaggeration one can say that PDM is a EDDL interpreter with auxiliary components. The auxiliary components, that are needed for the interpreter are large (in code size) than the actual interpreter. The components are things like communication, data serialization and user interface for example.

EDDL Compiler and Interpreter

My work is to maintain and extend the EDDL compiler and interpreter. This job is centered around maintaining the yacc++ syntax, the compiler framework, the language built in methods and the interpreter work.

Catalog

I also do some work in the catalog; which is the component that stores all EDDs with meta data so that EDDs can be associated to actual devices.