EPFL Industrial Communication Networks Overview

EPFL, Spring 2017
3 Industrial Communication Networks

Automation Overview
3.1 Field bus principles
3.2 Field bus operation
3.3 Standard field busses
3.4 Industrial wireless communication
Industrial Automation | 2017 2

Networks in Automation Hierarchy
Engineering
Supervision level Operator
2
Control Bus
programmable
Control level controllers
Fieldbus
direct I/O microPLCs
Field level
Sensor-Actuator Bus
transducers / actors
Course Hierarchy Industrial Automation | 2017 3
What is a field bus ?
A data network, interconnecting an automation system, characterized by:

- many small data items (process variables) with bounded delay (1ms..1s)
- transmission of non-real-time traffic for commissioning and diagnostics
- harsh environment (temperature, vibrations, EM-disturbances, water, salt,…)
- robust and easy installation by skilled people
- high integrity (no undetected errors) and high availability (redundant layout)
- clock synchronization (milliseconds to microseconds)
- low attachment costs ( € 5.- .. €50 / node)
- moderate data rates (50 kbit/s - 5 Mbit/s), large distance range (10m - 4 km)

Expectations
- reduce cabling
- increased modularity of plant (each object comes with its computer)
- easy fault location and maintenance
- simplify commissioning (mise en service, IBS = Inbetriebssetzung)
- simplify extension and retrofit
- off-the-shelf standard products to build “Lego”-control systems

The original idea: save wiring
marshalling tray
I/O dumb devices
bar capacity B
e
PLC f
o
r
e
smart devices
A
COM
PLC
f
field bus
t
e
But: the number of end-points remains the same ! r
energy must be supplied to smart devices

Marshalling (Rangierschiene, Barre de rangement)
The marshalling is the interface between

the PLC people and the instrumentation
people.
The fieldbus replaces the marshalling bar or

rather moves it piecewise to the process
(intelligent concentrator / wiring)

Different classes of field busses
One bus type cannot serve
all applications and all device types efficiently...
Data Networks
10,000 Workstations, robots, PCs
Higher cost
Not bus powered
Sensor Bus Long messages (e-mail, files)
Simple devices Not intrinsically safe
Low cost Coax cable, fiber
1000 Bus powered Max distance miles
Short messages (bits)
frame size Fixed configuration
(bytes) Not intrinsically safe
Twisted pair Honeywell
PV 6000
100
SP 6000
Max distance 500m

AUTO
1
High Speed Fieldbus Low Speed Fieldbus

PLC, DCS, remote I/O, motors Process instruments, valves
Medium cost Medium cost
10 Not bus powered Bus-powered (2 wire)
Messages: values, status Messages: values, status
Not intrinsically safe Intrinsically safe
Shielded twisted pair Twisted pair (reuse 4-20 mA)
Max distance 800m Max distance 1200m
10 100 1000 10,000

source: ABB
poll time, milliseconds

Fieldbus Application: locomotives and drives
radio power line

cockpit
diagnosis Train Bus

Vehicle Bus
brakes power electronics motors track signals
data rate 1.5 Mbit/second

delay 1 ms (16 ms for skip/slip control)
medium twisted wire pair, optical fibers (EM disturbances)
number of stations up to 255 programmable stations, 4096 simple I/O
integrity very high (signaling tasks)
cost engineering costs dominate

Fieldbus Application: automobile
Monitoring redundant
redundant
ECU and boardnetwork
board network
Board network ECU
Diagnosis ECU ECU48V
12V und
Brakes
ECU ECU
ECU
4
- Electromechanical wheel brakes

- Redundant Engine Control Units
- Pedal simulator
- Fault-tolerant 2-voltage on-board power supply
- Diagnostic System
Networking busses: electricity network control: myriads of protocols
Inter-Control Center Protocol
SCADA
control IEC 870-6 control ICCP control High
center center center HV Voltage
Modicom IEC 870-5 DNP 3.0 Conitel RP 570 serial links (telephone)
RTU RTU RTU RTU Remote Terminal Units
COM RTU
substation substation Medium
MV
Voltage
FSK, radio, DLC, cable, fiber,...

RTU
RTU
houses RTU RTU

Low
LV Voltage
low speed, long distance communication, may use

power lines or telephone modems.
Problem: diversity of protocols, data format, semantics...
Fieldbus over a wide area: example wastewater treatment
Pumps, gates, valves, motors, water level sensors, flow meters, temperature sensors, gas
meters (CH4), generators, etc are spread over an area of several km2. Some parts of the
plant have to cope with explosives.

Engineering a fieldbus: consider data density (Example: Power Plants)
Acceleration limiter and prime mover: 1 kbit in 5 ms

Burner Control: 2 kbit in 10 ms
For each 30 m of plant: 200 kbit/s
Fast controllers require at least 16 Mbit/s over distances of 2 m
 Data transmitted from periphery or from fast controllers to higher level

 Slower links to control level through field busses over distances of 1-2 km. The control
stations gather data at rates of about 200 kbit/s over distances of 30 m.
The control room computers are interconnected by a bus of at least 10 Mbit/s,

over distances of several 100 m.
Field bus planning: estimate data density per unit of length or

surface, response time and throughput over each link.

Assessment
• What is a field bus ?

• Which of these qualities are required:
1 Gbit/s operation
Frequent reconfiguration
Plug and play
Bound transmission delay
Video streaming
• How does a field bus support modularity ?
•Which advantages are expected from a field bus ?

Objective of the field bus
Distribute process variables to all interested parties:
• source identification: requires a naming scheme
• accurate process value and units
• quality indication: {good, bad, substituted}
• time indication: how long ago was the value produced
• (optional description)
source value quality time description

Data format
minimum
In principle, the bus could transmit the process variable in clear text (even using XML..)
However, this is quite expensive and only considered when the communication network
offers some 100 Mbit/s and a powerful processor is available to parse the message
More compact ways such as ASN.1 have been used in the past with 10 Mbit/s Ethernet
ASN.1: (TLV) type length value
Field busses are slower (50kbit/s ..12 Mbits/s) and thus more compact encodings are used.

Datasets
Field busses devices have a low data rate and transmit always the same variables.
It is economical to group variables of a device in the same frame as a dataset.
A dataset is treated as a whole for communication and access.
A variable is identified within a dataset by its offset and its size
Variables may be of different types, types can be mixed.
dataset
analog variables binary variables
dataset wheel air line time

identifier speed pressure voltage stamp
0 16 32 48 64 66 70
all door closed
bit offset size lights on
heat on
air condition on

Dataset extension and quality
To allow later extension, room is left in the datasets for additional variables.
Since the type of these future data is unknown, unused fields are filled with '1".
To signal that a variable is invalid, the producer overwrites the variable with "0".
Since both an "all 1" and an "all 0" word can be a meaningful combination, each
variable can be supervised by a check variable, of type ANTIVALENT2:
dataset
variable value check
correct variable 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1
error
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
undefined 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
00 = network error
chk_offset 01 = ok
var_offset 10 = substituted
11 = data undefined
A variable and its check variable are treated indivisibly when reading or writing
The check variable may be located anywhere in the same data set.

Hierarchical or peer-to-peer communication
PLC alternate PLC
central master / slave: hierarchical “master” AP master AP
all traffic passes by the master (PLC);

adding an alternate master is difficult
(it must be both master and slave)
“slaves”
input output
peer-to-peer: distributed PLC PLC PLC

“masters”
AP AP AP
PLCs may exchange data,
share inputs and outputs
allows redundancy
and “distributed intelligence”
devices talk directly to each other
“slaves”
input output
separate bus master from application master ! AP Application

Broadcasts
Most variables are read in 1 to 3 different devices
Broadcasting messages identified by their source (or contents) increases efficiency.
application application application

processor processor processor
plant
… image
instances = =
plant plant plant
image image image distributed variable
database
…
bus
Each device is subscribed as source or as sink for some process variables

Only one device is source of a certain process variable (otherwise collision)
Bus refreshes plant image in the background
Replicated traffic memories can be considered as "caches" of the plant state
(similar to caches in a multiprocessor system), representing part of the plant image.
Each station snoops the bus and reads the variables it is interested in.

Transmission principle
The previous operation modes made no assumption, how data are transmitted.
The actual network can transmit data

• cyclically (time-driven) or
• on demand (event-driven),
• or a combination of both.

Cyclic versus Event-Driven transmission
cyclic: send value strictly every xx milliseconds
misses the peak always the same, time

individual (Shannon-Nyquist!) why transmit ?
period
event-driven: send when value change by more than x% of range
resolution
how much resolution? nevertheless transmit:

- coarse (bad accuracy) - every xx as “I’m alive” sign
limit update
- fine (high frequency) - when data is internally updated
frequency!,
- upon quality change (failure)
limit resolution
Traffic Memory: implementation
Bus and Application are decoupled by shared memory, the Traffic Memory, (content addressed memory,
CAM, also known as communication memory); process variables are directly accessible by application.
Application
Processor
Traffic Memory
Ports (holding a dataset)
Associative
memory
an associative memory decodes two pages ensure that read and write
the addresses of the subscribed Bus can occur at the same time
datasets Controller (no semaphores !)
bus
Freshness supervision
Applications tolerate an occasional loss of data, but no stale data, which are at best useless and
at worst dangerous.
 Data must be checked if are up-to-date, independently of a time-stamp (simple devices do

not have time-stamping)
How: Freshness counter for each port in the traffic memory

- Reset by the bus or the application writing to that port
- Otherwise incremented regularly, either by application processor or bus controller.
- Applications always read the value of the counter before using port data and compare it with
its tolerance level.
The freshness supervision is evaluated by each reader independently, some readers may be
more tolerant than others.
Bus error interrupts in case of severe disturbances are not directed to the application, but to the
device management.
Example of Process Variable API (application programming interface)
Simple access of the application to variables in traffic memory:
ap_put (variable_name, variable value)

ap_get (variable_name, variable value, variable_status, variable_freshness)
Optimize: access by clusters (predefined groups of variables):
ap_put_cluster (cluster_name)
ap_get (cluster_name)
Each cluster is a table containing the names and values of several variables.
The clusters can correspond to "segments" in the function block programming.

Cyclic Data Transmission
address
Bus devices
Master 1 2 3 4 5 6
(slaves)
Poll
List
plant
Principle: master polls addresses in fixed sequence (poll list)
Individual period Individual period N polls

Example
Execution
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
time [ms]
The duration of each poll is the sum of

RTD the transmission time of address and
address data address data (bit-rate dependent)
(i) 10 µs/km (i) (i+1) and of the reply delay of the signals
time [µs] (independent of bit-rate).
read transfer
44 µs .. 296 µs
Round-trip delay of master-slave exchange
master closest data sink most remote data source
repeater repeater
T_m t_repeat
t_repeat
The propagation delay T_m
round-trip (t_pd = 6 µs/km)
delay limits t_source access delay
the extension t_mm t_ms (t_repeat < 3 µs)
of the bus T_s
t_repeat
t_sm
T_m
distance

Cyclic operation characteristics
1. Data are transmitted at fixed intervals, whether they changed or not.
2. The delivery delay (refresh rate) is deterministic and constant.
3. The bus is under control of a central master (or distributed time-triggered algorithm).
4. No explicit error recovery needed since fresh value will be transmitted in next cycle.
Consequence: cycle time limited by product of number of data transmitted and the
duration of each poll (e.g. 100 µs / variable x 100 variables => 10 ms)
To keep the poll time low, only small data items may be transmitted (< 256 bits)
The bus capacity must be configured beforehand.

Determinism gets lost if the cycles are modified at run-time.

Optimizing Cyclic Operation
Problem: fixed portion of the bus' time used

=> poll period increases with number of polled items
=> response time slows down
Solution: introduce sub-cycles for less urgent periodic variables

length: power of 2 multiple of the base period.
2 ms period
4 ms period
1 2 4a 8 16 1 4b 1 2 3 64 1 4a
time
1 ms period 1 ms 1 ms
(basic period) group with
period 1 ms
Notes: Poll cycles should not be modified at run-time (non-determinism)

Cyclic Transmission with Decoupled Application
cyclic cyclic cyclic cyclic
algorithms algorithms algorithms algorithms
cyclic
poll application application application application
1 2 3 4
bus source
master Ports Ports
port
Ports Ports
Periodic Traffic
List Memory
sink sink
port port
bus bus bus bus bus
controller controller controller controller controller
bus
port address port data
The bus traffic and the application cycles are asynchronous to each other.
The bus master scans the identifiers at its own pace.
Deterministic behavior, at expense of reduced bandwidth and geographical extension.

Example: delay requirement
publisher
application instance subscribers application instances
device device device
applications
bus
bus instance
Worst-case delay for transmitting all time critical variables is the sum of:
Source application cycle time 8 ms
Individual period of the variable on bus 16 ms
Sink application cycle time 8 ms
= 32 ms

Event-driven Operation
• Events cause transmission only when state changes.
• Bus load very low on average, but peaks under exceptional situations
since transmissions are correlated by process (christmas-tree effect).
intelligent event- event- event-

stations reporting reporting reporting
station station station
sensors/
actors
plant
Detection of an event is an intelligent process:

• Not every change of a variable is an event, even for binary variables.
• Often, a combination of changes builds an event.
• Only the application can decide what is an event, since only the application
programmer knows the meaning of the variables.
Bus interface for event-driven operation
• Each transmission on bus causes an interrupt.
application
• Bus controller checks address and stores data in message queues.
filter • Driver is responsible for removing messages of queue memory and
driver prevent overflow.
Application • Filter decides if message can be processed.
Processor
message (circular) queues
interrupt
Bus
Controller
bus
Response of Event-driven operation
Caller Transport Bus Transport Called
Application software software Application
request
interrupt
indication
confirm
time
Since events can occur anytime on any device, stations communicate by

spontaneous transmission, leading to possible collisions
Interruption of server device at any instant can disrupt a time-critical task.
Buffering of events can cause unbounded delays
Gateways introduce additional uncertainties

Determinism and Medium Access In Busses
Although the moment an event occurs is not predictable, the bus

should transmit the event in a finite time to guarantee the reaction delay.
Events are necessarily announced spontaneously
The time required to transmit the event depends on the medium access
(arbitration) procedure of the bus.
Medium access control methods are either deterministic or not.
Non-deterministic Deterministic
Collision Central master,

(CSMA/CA) Token-passing (round-robin),
Binary bisection (collision with winner)

Events and Determinism
Deterministic medium access necessary to guarantee delivery time bound
but not sufficient since events messages are queued in the devices.
events
producers
& consumers
input and
output queues
bus
acknowledgements
data packets
The average delivery time depends on the length of the queues, on the bus
traffic and on the processing time at the destination.
Often, the applications influence the event delay much more than the bus does.
Real-time Control = Measurement + Transmission + Processing + Acting

Events Pros and Cons
In an event-driven control system, there is only a transmission or an operation

when an event occurs.
Advantages: Can treat a large number of events – but not all at the same time
Supports a large number of stations
System idle under steady - state conditions
Better use of resources
Uses write-only transfers, suitable for LANs with long propagation delays
Suitable for standard (interrupt-driven) operating systems (Unix, Windows)
Drawbacks: Requires intelligent stations (event building)

Needs shared access to resources (arbitration)
No upper limit to access time if some component is not deterministic
Response time difficult to estimate, requires analysis
Limited by congestion effects: process correlated events
A background cyclic operation is needed to check liveliness

Summary: Cyclic vs Event-Driven Operation
decoupled (asynchronous): coupled (with interrupts):
application application
processor processor
events
(interrupts)
traffic
memory queues
(buffer)
bus bus
controller controller
sending: application writes data into memory sending: application inserts data into queue
and triggers transmission,
receiving: application reads data from memory bus controller fetches data from queue
receiving: bus controller inserts data into queue
the bus controller decides when to transmit and interrupts application to fetch them,
bus and application are not synchronized application retrieves data

Mixed Data Traffic
Process Data Message Data

represent the state of the plant represent state changes of the plant
short and urgent data items infrequent, sometimes long
messages reporting events, for:
... motor current, axle speed, operator's • Users: set points, diagnostics, status
commands, emergency stops,... • System: initialisation, down-loading, ...
-> Periodic Transmission -> Sporadic Transmission of

of Process Variables Process Variables and Messages
Since variables are refreshed periodically, no Since messages represent state

retransmission protocol is needed to recover from changes, a protocol must recover lost data in case of
transmission error. transmission errors
basic period basic period

event
time
sporadic periodic sporadic periodic
phase phase phase phase
Mixing Traffic is a configuration issue
Cyclic broadcast of source-addressed variables standard solution for process control.
Cyclic transmission takes large share of bus bandwidth and should be reserved for really critical
variables.
Decision to declare a variable as cyclic or event-driven can be taken late in a

project, but cannot be changed on-the-fly in an operating device.
Message transmission scheme must exist alongside the cyclic transmission to carry
not-critical variables and long messages such as diagnostics or network management
An industrial communication system should provide both transmission modes.

Real-Time communication stack
The real-time communication model uses two stacks, one for time-critical variables
and one for messages
time-critical time-benign Management

process variables messages Interface
7 Application
implicit implicit 6 Presentation
Remote Procedure Call 5 Session
Logical Link connection-oriented 4 Transport (connection-oriented)
Control connectionless 3 Network (connectionless)
connectionless 2" Logical Link Control
medium access 2' Link (Medium Access)
common
media 1 Physical

Cyclic or Event-driven Operation For Real-time ?
cyclic operation event-driven operation

Data are transmitted at fixed intervals, Data are only transmitted when they
whether they changed or not. change or upon explicit demand.
Deterministic: delivery time is bound Non-deterministic: delivery time vary widely
Worst Case is normal case Typical Case works most of the time
All resources are pre-allocated Best use of resources
(periodic, round-robin) (aperiodic, demand-driven, sporadic)
object-oriented bus message-oriented bus
Fieldbus Foundation, MVB, FIP, .. Profibus, CAN, LON, ARCnet

Time-stamping and synchronisation
In many applications, e.g. disturbance logging and sequence-of-events,

the exact sampling time of a variable must be transmitted together with its value.
=> Devices equipped with clock recording creation time of value (not transmission time).
To reconstruct events coming from several devices, clocks must be synchronized.

considering transmission delays and failures.
input input input processing

t1 t2 t3 t4
bus
t1 val1
Example: Phasor information
Phasor transmission over the European grid: a phase error of 0,01 radian is allowed, corresponding to +/- 26 µs in a
60 Hz grid or 31 µs in a 50 Hz grid.

Time distribution
In master-slave busses, master distributes time as bus frame.

Slave can compensate for path delays, time is relative to master
In demanding systems, time is distributed over separate lines as relative time, e.g. PPS = one pulse
per second, or absolute time (IRIG-B), with accuracy of 1 µs.
In data networks, a reference clock (e.g. GPS or atomic clock) distributes the time. A protocol
evaluates the path delays to compensate them.
• NTP (Network Time Protocol): about 1 ms is usually achieved.
• PTP (Precision Time Protocol, IEEE 1588), all network devices collaborate to estimate the
delays, an accuracy below 1 µs can be achieved without need for separate cables (but hardware
support for time stamping required).
(Telecom networks typically do not distribute time, they only distribute frequency)

NTP (Network Time Protocol) principle
client network server
t1 time request
t2
network time response
delay  t3
t4
(t 4  t1 )  (t3  t 2 )

2
time request
t’1
t’2
time response
t’3
network delay t’4

distance
time
Measures delay end-to-end over the network (one calculation)

Problem: asymmetry in the network delays, long network delays
IEEE 1588 principle (PTP, Precision Time Protocol)
Grand Master Clock
residence time peer delay

calculation calculation MC
Pdelay-response
TC
Pdelay-request
TC
TC
MC = master clock
TC TC
TC = transparent clock
OC = ordinary clock
OC OC OC OC
Two calculations: residence time and peer delay

All nodes measure delay to peer
TC correct for residence time (HW support)
IEEE 1588 – 1 step clocks
bridge bridge
time 1-step 1-step
ordinary grand
transparent transparent
(slave) clock master clock
clock clock
t1 Pdelay_Req t2 Pdelay_Req
t1 t2
Pdelay_Req
t1 t2
peer delay link delay  t3
Pdelay_Resp
Pdelay_Resp t3
calculation t4 Pdelay_Resp t3
t4
t4
(contains t3 – t2)
Sync
residence t5

residence time time
t6
calculation  residence  Sync
time
t5 Sync
(contains all  + )
distance
Grandmaster sends the time spontaneously.

Each device computes the path delay to its neighbour and its residence time
and corrects the time message before forwarding it

References
To probe further
• http://www.ines.zhaw.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/engineering/_Institute_und_Zentren/INES/IEEE158
8/Dokumente/IEEE_1588_Tutorial_engl_250705.pdf
• http://blog.meinbergglobal.com/2013/11/22/ntp-vs-ptp-network-timing-smackdown/
• http://blog.meinbergglobal.com/2013/09/14/ieee-1588-accurate/

Networking field busses
Networking field busses is not done through bridges or routers,

because normally, transition from one bus to another is associated with:
- data reduction (processing, sum building, alarm building, multiplexing)
- data marshalling (different position in the frames)
- data transformation (different formats on different busses)
Only system management messages could be threaded through from end to end,
but due to lack of standardization, data conversion is not avoidable today.

Assessment
What is the difference between a centralized and a decentralized industrial

bus ?
What is the principle of source-addressed broadcast ?
What is the difference between a time-stamp and a freshness counter ?
Why is an associative memory used for source-addressed broadcast ?
What are the advantages / disadvantages of event-driven communication ?
What are the advantages / disadvantages of cyclic communication ?
How is time transmitted ?
How are field busses networked ?


Different classes of field busses
One bus type cannot serve
all applications and all device types efficiently...
Data Networks
10,000 Workstations, robots, PCs
Higher cost
Not bus powered
Sensor Bus Long messages (e-mail, files)
Simple devices Not intrinsically safe
Low cost Coax cable, fiber
1000 Bus powered Max distance miles
Short messages (bits)
frame size Fixed configuration
(bytes) Not intrinsically safe
Twisted pair Honeywell
PV 6000
100
SP 6000
Max distance 500m

AUTO
1
High Speed Fieldbus Low Speed Fieldbus

PLC, DCS, remote I/O, motors Process instruments, valves
Medium cost Medium cost
10 Not bus powered Bus-powered (2 wire)
Messages: values, status Messages: values, status
Not intrinsically safe Intrinsically safe
Shielded twisted pair Twisted pair (reuse 4-20 mA)
Max distance 800m Max distance 1200m
10 100 1000 10,000

source: ABB
poll time, milliseconds

Worldwide most popular field busses
Market shares held by the leading fieldbus and industrial Ethernet systems
Source: HMS Industrial Networks, 2016 Industrial Automation | 2017 55
Field device: example differential pressure transducer
4..20 mA current loop
fluid
The device transmits its value by means of a current loop

4-20 mA loop - the conventional, analog standard
The 4-20 mA is the most common analog transmission standard in industry
sensor transducer reader reader voltage

i(t) = f(v) 1 2 source
flow
10V..24V
RL1 R1 RL2 R2 RL3 R3 RL4
i(t) = 0, 4..20 mA RL4 conductor resistance
The transducer limits the current to a value between 4 mA and 20 mA,

proportional to the measured value, while 0 mA signals an error (wire break)
The voltage drop along the cable and the number of readers induces no error.
Simple devices are powered directly by the residual current (4mA), allowing to transmit signal and power
through a single pair of wires.
4-20mA is basically a point-to-multipoint communication (one source)

HART
 Data over 4..20 mA loops

HART – Principle (1986)
HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) was developed by Fisher-Rosemount to retrofit 4-to-20mA
current loop transducers with digital data communication (not for closed-loop communication).
HART modulates the 4-20mA current

with a low-level frequency-shift-keyed
(FSK) sine-wave signal, without
affecting the average analogue signal.
HART uses low frequencies (1200Hz
and 2200 Hz) to deal with poor
cabling, its rate is 1200 Bd - but
sufficient.
Transmission of device characteristics is normally not real-time critical

HART - Protocol
Hart communicates point-to-point, under the control of a master, e.g. a hand-held device
Master Slave
Indication
Request
time-out
Response
Confirmation
Hart frame format (character-oriented, not bit-oriented):

preamble start address command bytecount [status] data data checksum
5..20 [2] 0..25
1 1..5 1 1 1
(xFF) (slave response) (recommended)

HART - Commands
Universal commands (mandatory):

identification,
primary measured variable and unit (floating point format)
loop current value (%) = same info as current loop
read current and up to four predefined process variables
write short polling address
sensor serial number
instrument manufacturer, model, tag, serial number, descriptor,
range limits, …
Common practice (optional)

time constants, range,
EEPROM control, diagnostics,…
total: 44 standard commands, plus user-defined commands
Transducer-specific (vendor-defined)
calibration data,
trimming,…

HART - Importance
Practically all 4..20mA devices come equipped with HART today
About 40 Mio devices are sold per year.
more info: http://www.hartcomm.org/

http://www.thehartbook.com/default.asp

Fieldbus Comparison
Fieldbus BW Max Max Application Max Nodes Notes
Length Data
Size
1.5-12 Factory Token passing, master-slave /

PROFIBUS 100 m – 24
Mbit/s 246 Automation 127 P2P, operate sensors and
(DP and km
31.25 bytes Process 32 actuators (DP), monitor
PA) 1900 m
Kbits/s Automation measuring equipment (PA)
CSMA/CD, master-slave,
250 Factory
DeviceNet 500 m 8 bytes 64 multidrop, motors, drives, uses
kBit/s Automation
CAN
10 kBit/s Automobile,
CSMA, Ideal for small data and
CANopen - 25-1000 m 8 bytes Industrial 127
fast sync, uses CAN
1 Mbit/s Automation
http://www.bierlemartin.de/hengstler/training/fbcomp.htm
http://www.pacontrol.com/download/fieldbuscomp.pdf
http://www.mtl.de/pdfs/news/open_fieldbus.pdf
CAN
Mastership multi-master, 12-bit bisection, bit-wise arbitration

Link layer control connectionless (command/reply/acknowledgement)
Upper layers no transport, no session, implicit presentation

CAN - Analysis
+ -
+ supported by user organisations – limited product distance x rate (40 m x Mbit/s)
ODVA, Honeywell...
– sluggish real-time response (2.5 ms)
+ numerous low cost chips, come free with many
embedded controllers – non-deterministic medium access
– several incompatible application layers (CanOpen,

+ application layer definition
DeviceNet, SDS)
+ application layer profiles – strongly protected by patents (Bosch)
+ bus analyzers and configuration tools available – interoperability questionable (too many different
implementations)
+ Market: industrial automation, automobiles – small data size and limited number of registers in the
chips.
– no standard message services.

Ethernet Paradigms
Classical Ethernet + Fieldbus SCADA
switch
Ethernet
PLC PLC PLC
Fieldbus
cheap field devices
decentralized I/O simple
cyclic operation devices
Ethernet as Fieldbus SCADA

switch
Ethernet
costlier field devices

Soft-PLC Soft-PLC Soft-PLC Soft-PLC
Soft-PLC as concentrators
Event-driven operation
This is a different wiring philosophy.

The bus must follow the control system structure, not the other way around
The Ethernet „standards“
IEC SC65C „standardized“ 22 different, uncompatible "Industrial Ethernets“, driven by „market demand“.
2 EtherNet/IP (Rockwell. OVDA)

3 Profibus, Profinet (Siemens, PNO)
4 P-NET (Denmark)
6 INTERBUS (Phoenix)
10 Vnet/IP (Yokogawa, Japan)
11 TCnet (Toshiba, Japan)
12 Ethercat (Beckhoff, Baumüller)
13 Powerlink (BR, AMK)
14 EPA (China)
15 Modbus-RTPS (Schneider, IDA)
16 SERCOS (Bosch-Rexroth / Indramat)
…
In addition to Ethernets standardized in other committees:

FF's HSE, (Emerson, E&H, FF)
IEC61850 (Substations)
ARINC (Airbus, Boeing,..)
Compatibility: practically none
Overlap: a lot
Ethernet and fieldbus roles
Traditionally, Ethernet is used for the communication among the PLCs and for communication of the PLCs
with the supervisory level and with the engineering tools
Fieldbus is in charge of the connection with the decentralized I/O and for time-critical communication
among the PLCs.
local I/O
CPU
fieldbus
Ethernet

Future of field busses
Non-time critical busses are being displaced by LANs (Ethernet)

and cheap peripheral busses (USB, …)
These "cheap" solutions are being adapted to the industrial environment

and become a proprietary solution (e.g. Siemens "Industrial Ethernet")
The cabling objective of field busses (more than 32 devices over 400 m) is out of reach
for cheap peripheral busses such as USB.
Fieldbusses tend to live very long (10-20 years), contrarily to office products.
There is no real incentive from the control system manufacturers to reduce the
fieldbus diversity, since the fieldbus binds customers.
The project of a single, interoperable field bus defined by users (Fieldbus Foundation)
failed, both in the standardisation and on the market.

Fieldbus Selection Criteria
Installed base, devices availability: processors, input/output

Interoperability (how likely is it to work with a product from another manufacturer
Topology and wiring technology (layout)
Power distribution and galvanic separation (power over bus, potential differences)
Connection costs per (input-output) point

Response time
Deterministic behavior
Device and network configuration tools
Bus monitor (baseline and application level) tools
Integration in development environment

Assessment
Which are the selection criteria for a field bus ?
Which is the medium access and the link layer operation of CAN ?
What is the wiring philosophy of Industrial Ethernet?
What makes a field bus suited for hard-real-time operation ?
How does the market influence the choice of the bus ?


Motivation for Industrial Wireless
• Reduced installation and reconfiguration

costs
• Easy access to machines

(diagnostic or reprogramming)
• Improved factory floor coverage
• Eliminates damage of cabling
• Globally accepted standards

(mass production)

Wireless Landscape

Wireless IEEE Numbers

Requirements for Industrial Wireless
Events Registration No Remote Control

Measurements n Machine Health Monitoring
Re
Media System Configuration
Soft Real - time
al
Internet Connectivity
- ti
me
Wireless Industrial
Applications
Hard e
- Tim
Real
Control Loops
Machine-to-machine communication

Challenges and Spectrum of Solutions
Wireless Challenges
Attenuation
Fading Existing Solutions
Existing Solutions
Multipath dispersion
Antenna Redundancy
Interference
High Bit Error rate Cooperative diversity
Burst channel errors
ARQ
Application Requirements Error Correction Codes
Reliable delivery
Modulation Techniques
Meet deadlines
Support message priority Transmitter Design

Reliability for wireless channel
Radio wave interferes with surrounding environment creating multiple waves at

receiver antenna, they are delayed with respect to each other. Concurrent
transmissions cause interference too.
=> Bursts of errors
 Forward Error Correction (FEC):
Encoding redundancy to overcome error bursts
 Automated Repeat ReQuest (ARQ):
Retransmit entire packets when receiver cannot decode the packet
(acknowledgements)

Existing protocols- comparison
Feature 802.11 Bluetooth Zigbee / 802.15.4
Interference from other -- Avoided using frequency Dynamic channel selection

devices hopping possible
Optimized for Multimedia, TCP/IP and Cable replacement Low power low cost
high data rate applications technology for portable networking in residential
and fixed electronic and industrial
devices. environment.
Energy Consumption High Low (Large packets over Least (Small packets over
small networks) large networks)
Voice support/Security Yes/Yes Yes/Yes No/Yes
Type of Network / Mobile / CSMA/CA and Mobile & Static / Polling Mostly static with
Channel Access polling infrequently used devices
/ CSMA and slotted
CSMA/CA
Bit error rate High Low Low
Real Time deadlines ??? ??? ???

Legal Frequencies
www.fcc.gov

Range vs Data Range
10 km
1 km 3G
100 m 802.11b,g 802.11a
10 m ZigBee Bluetooth
ZigBee
UWB UWB
1m
0 GHz 1GHz 2 GHz 3 GHz 4 GHz 5 GHz 6 GHz

Industrial Example: WirelessHART
 HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) fieldbus protocol

 Supported by 200+ global companies
 Since 2007 Compatible WirelessHART extension

WirelessHART Networking Stack
 PHY:
• 2,4 GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical Band (ISM-Band)
• Transmission power 0 - 10 dBm
• 250 kbit/s data rate
 MAC:
• TDMA (10ms slots, static roles)
• Collision and interference avoidance:
Channel hopping and black lists
 Network layer:
• Routing (graph/source routing)
• Redundant paths

WirelessHART Networking Stack May be replaced by
6TiSCH?
 Transport layer:
• Quality of Service (QoS): (Command, Process-Data, Normal, Alarm)
 Application layer:
• Standard HART application layer
• Device Description Language
• Timestamping
 Boot-strapping:
• Gateway announcements (network ID and time sync)
• Device sends join request
• Authentication and configuration via network manager

Design Industrial Wireless Network
 Existing wireless in plant; frequencies used?

 Can the new system co-exist with existing?
 How close are you to potential interferences?
 What are uptime and availability requirements?
 Can system handle multiple hardware failures without
performance degradation?
 What about energy source for wireless devices?
 Require deterministic power consumption to ensure predictable
maintenance.
 Power management fitting alerting requirements and battery
replacement goals

Assessment
• Why is a different wireless system deployed in a factory than at home?
• What are the challenges of the wireless medium and how are they tackled?
• How can UWB offer both a costly and high bandwidth and a cheaper and high
bandwidth services?
• Which methods are used to cope with the crowded ISM band?
• Why do we need bootstrapping in Wireless HART?

References
• Wireless Communication in Industrial Networks, Kavitha Balasubramanian, Cpre 458/558: Real-Time

Systems, www.class.ee.iastate.edu/cpre458/cpre558.F00/notes/rt-lan7.ppt
• WirelessHART, Christian Hildebrand, www.tu-cottbus.de/systeme,
http://systems.ihp-microelectronics.com/uploads/downloads/
2008_Seminar_EDS_Hildebrand.pdf
• WirelessHARTTM Expanding the Possibilities, Wally Pratt HART Communication Foundation,
www.isa.org/wsummit/.../RHelsonISA-Wireless-Summit-7-23-07.ppt
• Industrial Wireless Systems, Peter Fuhr, ISA,
www.isa.org/Presentations_EXPO06/FUHR_IndustrialWirelessPresentation_EXPO06.ppt

EPFL Industrial Communication Networks Overview

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EPFL, Spring 2017

3 Industrial Communication Networks

3.1 Field bus principles

3.2 Field bus operation

3.3 Standard field busses

3.4 Industrial wireless communication

Industrial Automation | 2017 2

A data network, interconnecting an automation system, characterized by:

Industrial Automation | 2017 4

- increased modularity of plant (each object comes with its computer)

- easy fault location and maintenance

- simplify commissioning (mise en service, IBS = Inbetriebssetzung)

- simplify extension and retrofit

- off-the-shelf standard products to build “Lego”-control systems

Industrial Automation | 2017 5

Industrial Automation | 2017 6

The marshalling is the interface between

The fieldbus replaces the marshalling bar or

(intelligent concentrator / wiring)

Industrial Automation | 2017 7

Max distance 500m

High Speed Fieldbus Low Speed Fieldbus

10 100 1000 10,000

Industrial Automation | 2017 8

radio power line

diagnosis Train Bus

brakes power electronics motors track signals

data rate 1.5 Mbit/second

Industrial Automation | 2017 9

- Electromechanical wheel brakes

FSK, radio, DLC, cable, fiber,...

houses RTU RTU

low speed, long distance communication, may use

Industrial Automation | 2017 12

Acceleration limiter and prime mover: 1 kbit in 5 ms

 Data transmitted from periphery or from fast controllers to higher level

The control room computers are interconnected by a bus of at least 10 Mbit/s,

Field bus planning: estimate data density per unit of length or

3.1 Field bus principles

3.2 Field bus operation

3.3 Standard field busses

3.4 Industrial wireless communication

Industrial Automation | 2017 14

• What is a field bus ?

Industrial Automation | 2017 15

Distribute process variables to all interested parties:

• source identification: requires a naming scheme

• accurate process value and units

• quality indication: {good, bad, substituted}

• time indication: how long ago was the value produced

source value quality time description

Industrial Automation | 2017 16

ASN.1: (TLV) type length value

Industrial Automation | 2017 17

analog variables binary variables

dataset wheel air line time

Industrial Automation | 2017 18

variable value check

Industrial Automation | 2017 19

all traffic passes by the master (PLC);

peer-to-peer: distributed PLC PLC PLC

separate bus master from application master ! AP Application

Industrial Automation | 2017 20