For this, Comsys offers an ADF Link setup (formerly known as "Multi-master") to combine up to 15 control-computer together.
ADF Link brings therefore the possibility to combine up to 90 power modules into one big ADF.
Communication
The backbone of the ADF Link is the CAN communication used to transfer setpoints between the control-computer. A communication bus is constructed here where one of the ADFs will take over the roll of the controller and all other ADFs will take the roll of a follower. The follower only does whatever the controller tells them to do over the CAN interface.
Setup
The setup is very easy, by only giving each system an identification number, the communication can be established within seconds.
Compensation settings will then also be transferred from the controller node to all the follower nodes.
Operation
The operation of each ADF is completely independent. Starting, stopping and errors are not connected to the ADF Link operation. The transferred information is how many systems are running at each moment and what the compensation setpoint is. Based on that each running ADF is generating the needed compensation current. If one ADF stops, then the information is distributed to all other systems and they will take over the workload of the stopped system immediately.
If for some reason the controller stops, a new controller will be identified directly, and it will take over the controller role. This happens on the fly.
Redundancy
With ADF Link it is possible to design a redundancy scheme on every level. N+1, N+2, 2N …
With the basic operations of the ADF Link you directly get a basic redundancy already with 2 systems in the loop.