Elbfisch offers a runtime environment and a canon of basic functions that enable the team-based development of object-orientated automation applications when used in conjunction with common open-source products (such as the integrated development environments ‘Netbeans’ and ‘Eclipse’), Linux as operating system and ‘git’ as distributed version management system. Java is used for the programming.
The Elbfisch concept is based on the principle that an automation application needs to represent a copy of the process that it controls. A process (a system) is made up of aggregates that interact with each other and may themselves be made up of subordinate aggregates. Elbfisch modules can be used to represent this hierarchy of aggregates. Modules can be implemented independently, have defined interfaces with no side-effects and, when implemented universally, can be re-used in any implementations.
Like the aggregates that have to interact in a system that is being automated, the representative Elbfisch modules must also exchange information with one another. To make this possible, Elbfisch uses the concept of signals. A module receives information from other modules via signals and uses signals to send information to other modules.