9/19/12

Using MODBUS for Process Control and Automation (1) | EEP

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Using MODBUS for Process Control and Automation (1)

T h e Sch n eider Elect r ic Modicon Qu a n t u m is a v er sa t ile PLC u sed in a w ide v a r iet y of sect or s in clu din g m a n u fa ct u r in g , w a t er /w a st ew a t er , oil a n d g a s, ch em ica l a n d m or e.

MODBUS is the most popular industrial protocol being used today , for good reasons. It is simple, inex pensiv e, univ ersal and easy to use. Ev en though MODBUS has been around since the past century nearly 30 y ears, almost all major industrial instrumentation and automation equipment v endors continue to support it in new products. Although new analy zers, flowmeters and PLCs may hav e a wireless, Ethernet or fieldbus interface, MODBUS is still the protocol that most v endors choose to implement in new and old dev ices. Another adv antage of MODBUS is that it can run ov er v irtually all communication media, including twisted pair wires, wireless, fiber optics, Ethernet, telephone modems, cell phones and microwav e. This means that a MODBUS connection can be established in a new or ex isting plant fairly easily . In fact, one growing application for MODBUS is prov iding digital communications in older plants, using ex isting twisted pair wiring. In this white paper, well ex amine how MODBUS works and look at a few clev er way s that MODBUS can be used in new and legacy plants.

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9/19/12

Using MODBUS for Process Control and Automation (1) | EEP

What is MODBUS?
MODBUS was dev eloped by Modicon (now Schneider Electric) in 1 97 9 as a means for communicating with many dev ices ov er a single twisted pair wire. The original scheme ran ov er RS232, but was adapted to run on RS485 to gain faster speed, longer distances and a true multi-drop network. MODBUS quickly became a de facto standard in the automation industry , and Modicon released it to the public as a roy alty free protocol. Today , MODBUS-IDA (www.MODBUS.org), the largest organized group of MODBUS users and v endors, continues to support the MODBUS protocol worldwide. MODBUS is a master-slav e sy stem, where the master communicates with one or multiple slav es. The master ty pically is a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller), PC, DCS (Distributed Control Sy stem) or RTU (Remote Terminal Unit). MODBUS RTU slav es are often field dev ices, all of which connect to the network in a multidrop configuration, Figure 1. When a MODBUS RTU master wants information from a dev ice, the master sends a message that contains the dev ices address, data it wants, and a checksum for error detection. Ev ery other dev ice on the network sees the message, but only the dev ice that is addressed responds.

Slav e dev ices on MODBUS networks cannot initiate communication; they can only respond. In other words, they speak only when spoken to. Some manufacturers are dev eloping hy brid dev ices that act as MODBUS slav es, but also hav e write capability , thus making them pseudo-Masters at times. The three most common MODBUS versions used today are: 1 . MODBUS ASCII 2. MODBUS RTU 3. MODBUS/TCP
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Fig u r e 1 . A MODBUS RT U n et w or k con sist s of on e m a st er , su ch a s a PLC or DCS, a n d u p t o 2 4 7 sla v e dev ices con n ect ed in a m u lt i-dr op con fig u r a t ion

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Using MODBUS for Process Control and Automation (1) | EEP

All MODBUS messages are sent in the same format. The only difference among the three MODBUS ty pes is in how the messages are coded. In MODBUS ASCII, all messages are coded in hex adecimal, using 4-bit ASCII characters. For ev ery by te of information, two communication by tes are needed, twice as many as with MODBUS RTU or MODBUS/TCP. Therefore, MODBUS ASCII is the slowest of the three protocols, but is suitable when telephone modem or radio (RF) links are used. This is because ASCII uses characters to delimit a message. Because of this delimiting of the message, any delay s in the transmission medium will not cause the message to be misinterpreted by the receiv ing dev ice. This can be important when dealing with slow modems, cell phones, noisy connections, or other difficult transmission mediums. In MODBUS RTU, data is coded in binary , and requires only one communication by te per data by te. This is ideal for use ov er RS232 or multi-drop RS485 networks, at speeds from 1 ,200 to 1 1 5Kbaud. The most common speeds are 9,600 and 1 9,200 baud. MODBUS RTU is the most widely used industrial protocol, so most of this paper will focus on MODBUS RTU basics and application considerations. MODBUS/TCP is simply MODBUS ov er Ethernet. Instead of using dev ice addresses to communicate with slav e dev ices, IP addresses are used. With MODBUS/TCP, the MODBUS data is simply encapsulated inside a TCP/IP packet. Hence, any Ethernet network that supports TCP/IP should immediately support MODBUS/TCP. More details regarding this v ersion of MODBUS will be cov ered in a later section entitled MODBUS Ov er Ethernet. To be continued Resource: Using MODBUS for Process Control and Automation Moore Industries

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