Glossary · Engineering, integration and validation
Hardware configuration
Also known as: Hardware config, Device configuration
German: Hardwarekonfiguration
In industrial automation, hardware configuration is the definition, in the engineering tool, of the physical automation components and their settings: controllers, I/O modules, communication modules, network addresses and module parameters. The controller uses it to check and operate the connected hardware.
- Validation
In one sentence
Hardware configuration defines controllers, I/O modules, network addresses and module parameters in the engineering tool.
Example
The hardware configuration lists the CPU, two remote I/O stations with their device names and the input filter time of each digital input module.
How it applies
- Engineering: Engineers build the hardware configuration from the I/O list and the Network topology diagram, assigning addresses and parameters to each module.
- Commissioning: A mismatch between configured and installed hardware is reported by the controller's diagnostics, which helps find wrong modules or addressing errors.
- Maintenance: When a module is replaced, it must match the configuration or the configuration must be updated under Change control.
- Documentation: The documentation team uses exported hardware configurations to create spare parts lists and module overviews and states the hardware revision the manual applies to.
Hardware configuration vs. wiring
The hardware configuration is the logical description the controller knows; the physical connections are documented in the Electrical schematic and Wiring diagram. Both must match for signals to arrive where the software expects them.