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Description of device communication with Siemens S7-1200 / S7-1500 PLC

1. Type of communication

The device communicates with the PLC via the S7 protocol (Siemens S7 Communication), which is the native communication protocol of Siemens S7-1200 and S7-1500 PLCs. Communication runs over Ethernet (TCP/IP) on the standard port 102 (ISO-on-TCP).

2. Network connection

• Communication is client–server based:

  • The PLC acts as an S7 server.

  • The camera system’s computing unit acts as an S7 client that establishes the connection and reads/writes data to/from the PLC memory.

• IP addresses must be in the same network subnet.

• Fixed IP addresses are recommended for both sides.

3. PLC-side configuration

• Enabling S7 communication:

  • In the TIA Portal project, the CPU setting “Permit access with PUT/GET communication from remote partner” (or “Allow communication via S7”) must be enabled.

  • This allows external clients to access data via the S7 protocol.

• Data access:

  • Data exchange is stored in data blocks (DB).

  • These DBs must be set as non-optimized (standard compatibility mode) so they can be accessed via absolute addresses (e.g. DB10.DBD4).

  • Optimized DBs cannot be read/written directly via the S7 protocol.

• Data structure:

  • One or more communication DBs can be created for data exchange with the device.

  • All data types can be used: BOOL, INT, REAL, DWORD, etc.

  • Addressing is fixed (inputs in one data block, outputs in another).

• Security settings:

  • If access protection is enabled on the PLC, external S7 access must be allowed.

  • For higher security levels, TSAP identifiers or S7 connection parameters can be used.

4. Device-side configuration

On the device, the following is configured:

• PLC IP address,

• Rack number (usually 0) and CPU slot (for S7-1200/1500 usually 1),

• Data block numbers and offsets of individual variables.

The device cyclically reads and writes values to the corresponding DBs according to the configuration.