· 13 min read

Lessons from Integrating Hardware SDKs in Industrial Robotics

Practical considerations and patterns learned from working with vendor-provided SDKs—both .NET assemblies and COM components—in laboratory automation.

#Software Engineering#Backend#Best Practices

Most software engineers today work with clean, well-documented APIs: REST endpoints, gRPC services, and NuGet packages with full IntelliSense support.

In industrial robotics and laboratory automation, the integration story is different. Here, you work with vendor-provided SDKs—delivered as .NET assemblies, COM components, or both—that serve as the bridge between your software and physical hardware.

These SDKs aren’t inherently problematic. They represent years of work by hardware engineers who understand their devices deeply. But they do require a different mindset than consuming a typical web API or open-source library.

This post shares some lessons I’ve learned while working on these integrations.

The Nature of Hardware SDKs

When integrating lab instruments or robotic devices, vendors typically provide:

The first thing to understand is that these SDKs are designed with different constraints in mind. Hardware vendors prioritize:

This isn’t a criticism—it’s simply a different set of trade-offs. A certified medical device SDK that hasn’t changed in five years might be exactly what a regulated environment needs.

Working with Vendor-Provided .NET SDKs

Vendor SDKs delivered as .NET assemblies simplify some aspects of integration, but introduce their own considerations.

Assembly and Dependency Management

Vendor SDKs often come as a collection of DLLs that need to be deployed together:

/lib
  ├── VendorDevice.dll        # Main SDK assembly
  ├── VendorDevice.Core.dll   # Internal dependencies
  ├── VendorDevice.Comm.dll   # Communication layer
  └── ThirdParty.Lib.dll      # Third-party dependencies

A few things I’ve learned to watch for:

Threading and Synchronization

Even managed SDKs often have threading requirements that aren’t obvious from the API:

public class DeviceController
{
    private readonly VendorDevice _device;
    private readonly SemaphoreSlim _lock = new(1, 1);

    public async Task<Result> ExecuteCommandAsync(Command cmd)
    {
        // Some SDKs aren't thread-safe
        await _lock.WaitAsync();
        try
        {
            return await Task.Run(() => _device.Execute(cmd));
        }
        finally
        {
            _lock.Release();
        }
    }
}

I’ve seen issues where code worked perfectly in a single-threaded test but failed under concurrent access—simply because the SDK wasn’t designed for multi-threaded use.

What helps: Understanding the SDK’s threading model upfront, and designing your integration layer to enforce those constraints rather than hoping for the best.

Resource Cleanup and Lifecycle

Vendor SDKs often hold resources that need explicit cleanup—connections, handles, or internal state:

public class DeviceManager : IDisposable
{
    private readonly VendorDevice _device;
    private bool _initialized;

    public async Task InitializeAsync()
    {
        // Some SDKs require initialization in a specific order
        await Task.Run(() =>
        {
            _device.SetLicenseKey("...");  // Often required first
            _device.Initialize();           // May block for seconds
            _device.RegisterCallback(OnDeviceEvent);
        });
        _initialized = true;
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        // Cleanup order often matters
        if (_initialized)
        {
            _device.UnregisterCallback(OnDeviceEvent);
            _device.Shutdown();  // May also block
        }
    }
}

What helps: Implementing IDisposable carefully, and testing what happens when your application shuts down unexpectedly. Some SDKs don’t handle abrupt termination gracefully.

Environment and Configuration

Vendor SDKs can be sensitive to their runtime environment:

What helps: Documenting the exact environment requirements, and automating the setup process as much as possible. What works on a developer machine should work identically on a production system.

Error Handling and Diagnostics

Hardware SDK errors can be cryptic. Vendor-defined exception types or error codes may not be well documented:

try
{
    device.Execute(command);
}
catch (VendorDeviceException ex)
{
    // Error code 0x8004 could mean... many things
    _logger.LogError(ex, "Device error: {Code} - {Message}",
        ex.ErrorCode, ex.Message);
    throw new DeviceOperationException(
        TranslateErrorCode(ex.ErrorCode), ex);
}

What helps: Building comprehensive logging around SDK calls. When something fails in production, you’ll want to know exactly what was called, with what parameters, and what the device state was at the time.

Event Handling and Callbacks

Vendor SDKs frequently use events to report device status. These often fire from background threads:

public class DeviceAdapter
{
    private readonly SynchronizationContext? _syncContext;

    public DeviceAdapter()
    {
        // Capture the UI context if needed
        _syncContext = SynchronizationContext.Current;
    }

    private void OnDeviceEvent(object sender, DeviceEventArgs e)
    {
        // SDK callbacks may come from arbitrary threads
        if (_syncContext != null)
        {
            _syncContext.Post(_ => HandleEvent(e), null);
        }
        else
        {
            HandleEvent(e);
        }
    }
}

Wrapping Vendor Types

Creating your own abstractions over vendor types has value:

// Vendor SDK types leak into your domain
public class BadExample
{
    public VendorDevice Device { get; }  // Direct vendor dependency
}

// Better: wrap in your own abstractions
public interface IDevice
{
    DeviceStatus Status { get; }
    Task<OperationResult> ExecuteAsync(DeviceCommand command);
}

public class VendorDeviceAdapter : IDevice
{
    private readonly VendorDevice _vendorDevice;

    public DeviceStatus Status =>
        TranslateStatus(_vendorDevice.GetStatus());
}

This isolation pays off when vendor SDK updates introduce breaking changes, or when you need to support multiple device vendors behind a unified interface.

Working with COM Components

Some vendors still provide SDKs as COM components, especially for devices with longer product lifecycles. When working with COM in C#, there are additional considerations.

COM Interop Basics

Visual Studio can generate interop assemblies from COM type libraries, or you can use late binding for more flexibility:

// Early binding with generated interop assembly
var device = new VendorDeviceClass();
device.Initialize();

// Late binding when SDK versions vary across installations
var deviceType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Vendor.Device");
dynamic device = Activator.CreateInstance(deviceType);
device.Initialize();

Early binding provides compile-time type safety and IntelliSense; late binding is more forgiving when dealing with version differences across customer sites.

Threading and Apartment Models

COM components often have specific threading requirements. Single-threaded apartment (STA) components must be called from the thread that created them:

public class ComDeviceWrapper
{
    private readonly Thread _staThread;
    private readonly BlockingCollection<Action> _workQueue = new();

    public ComDeviceWrapper()
    {
        _staThread = new Thread(ProcessWorkQueue);
        _staThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
        _staThread.Start();
    }

    private void ProcessWorkQueue()
    {
        // Initialize COM on this thread
        var device = new VendorDeviceClass();

        foreach (var work in _workQueue.GetConsumingEnumerable())
        {
            work();
        }
    }

    public Task ExecuteOnStaThread(Action action)
    {
        var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource();
        _workQueue.Add(() =>
        {
            action();
            tcs.SetResult();
        });
        return tcs.Task;
    }
}

I’ve seen code work perfectly in a console application but fail mysteriously in a Windows Service—simply because the threading context was different.

COM Registration and Deployment

COM components require proper registration on the target machine:

What helps: Testing your installer on clean VMs. A missing COM registration is one of the most common deployment issues.

Error Handling with HRESULTs

COM errors typically surface as HRESULTs wrapped in exceptions:

try
{
    comDevice.Execute(command);
}
catch (COMException ex)
{
    // HRESULT values like 0x80040001 need translation
    _logger.LogError(ex, "COM error: 0x{HResult:X8}", ex.HResult);
    throw new DeviceOperationException(
        TranslateHResult(ex.HResult), ex);
}

Building a translation layer for common HRESULTs makes debugging much easier.

Architectural Patterns That Have Helped

The Adapter Layer

Rather than calling SDK methods directly throughout your codebase, it’s worth creating an abstraction layer:

flowchart TB
    subgraph app["Your Application"]
        direction TB
        biz["Business Logic"]
    end

    subgraph adapter["Device Adapter Layer"]
        direction TB
        interface["Domain Interface"]
        error["Error Handling"]
        logging["Logging & Diagnostics"]
        state["State Management"]
    end

    subgraph sdk["Vendor SDK"]
        direction TB
        dll[".NET / COM"]
    end

    subgraph hw["Physical Device"]
        direction TB
        device["Hardware"]
    end

    biz --> interface
    interface --> error
    error --> logging
    logging --> state
    state --> dll
    dll --> device

    classDef appStyle fill:#dbeafe,stroke:#2563eb,stroke-width:2px,rx:10,ry:10
    classDef adapterStyle fill:#d1fae5,stroke:#059669,stroke-width:2px,rx:10,ry:10
    classDef sdkStyle fill:#fef3c7,stroke:#d97706,stroke-width:2px,rx:10,ry:10
    classDef hwStyle fill:#f3e8ff,stroke:#7c3aed,stroke-width:2px,rx:10,ry:10
    classDef nodeStyle fill:#ffffff,stroke:#6b7280,stroke-width:1px,rx:5,ry:5

    class app appStyle
    class adapter adapterStyle
    class sdk sdkStyle
    class hw hwStyle
    class biz,interface,error,logging,state,dll,device nodeStyle

This abstraction provides several benefits:

State Machine Modeling

Physical devices have states that matter: initializing, ready, busy, error, disconnected. The SDK might not model these states explicitly, but your application needs to track them.

flowchart TB
    subgraph connection["Connection"]
        disc(["🔌 Disconnected"])
        init(["⏳ Initializing"])
    end

    subgraph operation["Operation"]
        ready(["✅ Ready"])
        busy(["⚙️ Busy"])
    end

    err(["❌ Error"])

    disc -->|Connect| init
    init -->|Success| ready
    init -.->|Failed| err
    ready -->|Start| busy
    busy -->|Complete| ready
    busy -.->|Failed| err
    err -->|Reset| init
    err -->|Disconnect| disc
    ready -->|Disconnect| disc

    classDef connectionBox fill:#f0f9ff,stroke:#0284c7,stroke-width:2px,rx:12,ry:12
    classDef operationBox fill:#f0fdf4,stroke:#16a34a,stroke-width:2px,rx:12,ry:12
    classDef disconnected fill:#f3f4f6,stroke:#6b7280,stroke-width:2px,color:#374151
    classDef initializing fill:#fef3c7,stroke:#d97706,stroke-width:2px,color:#92400e
    classDef ready fill:#d1fae5,stroke:#059669,stroke-width:2px,color:#065f46
    classDef busy fill:#dbeafe,stroke:#2563eb,stroke-width:2px,color:#1e40af
    classDef error fill:#fee2e2,stroke:#dc2626,stroke-width:2px,color:#991b1b

    class connection connectionBox
    class operation operationBox
    class disc disconnected
    class init initializing
    class ready ready
    class busy busy
    class err error

I’ve found it valuable to build explicit state machines for device management, even when the underlying SDK uses simpler callback or polling patterns. This makes the device behavior predictable and debuggable.

Defensive Timeout Policies

Hardware operations can hang. Networks can drop. Devices can become unresponsive. SDKs don’t always handle these cases the way you’d expect.

Wrapping SDK calls with explicit timeouts—and deciding what to do when they trigger—is time well spent. Consider:

What I Wish I’d Known Earlier

Read the sample code carefully. Often the vendor’s demo application contains subtle patterns that aren’t documented elsewhere. How they initialize components, in what order, and how they handle shutdown can be instructive.

Test on clean machines. Developer machines accumulate dependencies over time. Testing your integration on a fresh VM will reveal missing prerequisites before your customers do.

Plan for the SDK update cycle. Hardware vendors don’t update SDKs frequently, but when they do, it can be disruptive. An abstraction layer helps, but also keep notes on what SDK behavior your code depends on.

Build good diagnostics from the start. When a device stops working at a customer site, your logs are often your only window into what happened. Include timestamps, operation sequences, and device state in every log entry.

Expect the unexpected. Physical devices exist in the real world. They can be power-cycled mid-operation, disconnected without warning, or behave differently based on environmental factors. Design for graceful degradation.

Conclusion

Integrating vendor-provided SDKs isn’t inherently harder than working with modern web APIs—it’s just different. The technologies are mature and capable. The challenges come from bridging different design philosophies and operational assumptions.

The engineers who do this well tend to approach it with curiosity rather than frustration. Understanding why an SDK works the way it does—given the constraints its developers faced—often leads to better integration designs.

In the end, the goal is the same as any integration work: build a clean interface that your application can rely on, and handle the complexity at the boundary where it belongs.