The gateway functions allow data exchange between all available communication technologies. This is accomplished by using “connections” which connect data points of different technologies with each other. Both “1-to-n” and “m-to-1” connections are supported. Connections can contain simple or complex calculations. Different engineering units of connected data points are automatically converted. Connections can easily be created using templates. They are distinguished into local and global connections. Connections can be created manually or automatically using the Smart Auto-Connect™ feature of the Configurator tool. Especially the automated creation of connections reduces engineering effort and helps preventing configuration errors.
The Smart Auto-Connect™ feature works on a selection of source data points and creates target data points and the respective connections. In principle, Smart Auto-Connect™ can work with all available communication technologies as sources. However, only select technologies can be used as targets. Depending on the availability on the device model, data points can be created for the following technologies: CEA-709 (static NVs), BACnet (server objects), Modbus (slave registers) and user registers. A remarkable feature in this context is the automatic mapping of network variables to BACnet objects according to CEN/TS 15231:2005.