Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a command line tool that lets you communicate with an emulator instance or connected Android-powered device. It is a client-server program that includes three components:
A client, which runs on your development machine. You can invoke a client from a shell by issuing an adb command. A server, which runs as a background process on your development machine. The server manages communication between the client and the adb daemon running on an emulator or device. A daemon, which runs as a background process on each emulator or device instance. You can find the adb tool in /platform-tools/.
When you start an adb client, the client first checks whether there is an adb server process already running.