The “RIOChannel” Object in the functional aspect aggregates Process Value Objects optionally offering additional information like Process Value qualifiers associated with the IO data. Figure 8 shows the basic channel model for an analog RIO Input Channel according to RIOforPA.

Figure 8 – Analog Input Channel Model in Functional Aspect with RIOforPA

The functional aspect with RIO of the Information Model contains as many RIO Channel objects as needed to represent the IO’s associated with the PN Submodules of the Device.

The “ProcessValue” Variable in Figure 8 contains an analog Process Value. The VariableType used to represent analog Process Values is RioPaAnalogProcessValueVariableType, the data type used by this VariableType is RioPaAnalogProcessValueDataType.

Configuration properties of the RIO Channel are provided with the “Config” Variable. There are individual configuration VariableTypes defined for each channel type, the type used for analog Input Channels according to RIOforPA is RioPaAnalogInputConfigVariableType.

Figure 9 shows all RIO Channel ObjectTypes, Process Value VariableTypes and configuration ObjectTypes which are defined in this specification to cover digital and analog Input and Output for RIOforPA and RIOforFA.

Figure 9 – RioChannel ObjectTypes

The RIO Channel ObjectTypes provide additional components, Variables and configuration Properties available for access by the Client which substantially differ between the various types, see sections 7.2 and 9.4 for details.