Patent ID: 7502868

Claim:
An automation equipment comprising: a system unit that has at least one memory including a real time operating unit and that has an application program unit included therein that performs monitoring or control functions in an automation application; and an internal driver, which is a hardware component, directly included in the system unit and configured to connect to a TCP/IP network without going through a back panel bus, the operating unit of the system unit comprising, a communications management module configured to communicate to the TCP/IP network, and a control task unit responsible for controlling execution of the communications management module, the control task unit being directly connected to the communications management module to avoid disturbing an operation of the application program unit, wherein the communications management module is configured to extract information from data to-be-sent to the application program from the internal driver and to utilize said information, when a message is to be sent from the application program to the internal driver, to build said message having a TCP/IP protocol.