Glossary – National Instruments NI-DNET User Manual
Page 78
© National Instruments Corporation
G-1
Glossary
Symbol
Prefix
Value
m
milli
10
–3
k
kilo
10
3
A
A
amperes
AC
alternating current
actuator
A device that uses electrical, mechanical, or other signals to change
the value of an external, real-world variable. In the context of device
networks, actuators are devices that receive their primary data value from
over the network; examples include valves and motor starters. Also known
as final control element.
ANSI
American National Standards Institute
Application
Programming Interface
(API)
A collection of functions used by a user application to access hardware.
Within NI-DNET, you use API functions to make calls into the NI-DNET
driver.
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Exchange
Assembly Object
Objects in DeviceNet devices which route I/O message contents to/from
individual attributes in the device.
attribute
The externally visible qualities of an object; for example, an instance
square of class Geometric Shapes could have the attributes length of sides
and color, with the values 4 in. and blue.
automatic polling
A polled I/O mode in which NI-DNET automatically determines an
appropriate