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Signal Class Summary

The following pages provide detailed information on the properties and methods of the global Signal Class. This class provides access to the simple hardware interfacing features of the Guidance controller, such as the digital and analog input and output (I/O). These common interfaces allow a GPL program to coordinate its actions with those of other devices.

Using the digital I/O, programs can employ semaphores to interlock their execution with other equipment in the work cell such as feeders or processing machines. Using the analog I/O, programs can sample the values of simple sensors such as force or temperature sensors to alter the sequence of program execution.

As is standard in GPL, conversions between different arithmetic types, e.g. Boolean, Integer, Single, Double, are automatically performed as required. So, for numeric properties and methods of the Signal Class, it is not necessary to have different variations of these members to deal with the different possible mixes of input parameter data types. Also, as appropriate, the properties and methods generally produce results that are formatted as Double’s. These results will automatically be converted to smaller data types as necessary, e.g. Double -> Integer, and will not generate an error so long as numeric overflow does not occur.

Table 19-74 summarizes the properties and methods that are described in greater detail in the following sections.