The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Measurement and Instruments

ICEMI2007

Developing Trend of Industrial Fieldbus Control System

Chen Gang Ye Dong Che Rensheng

(Department of Automatic Test and Control, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 China) Abstract: The evolvement of the industrial field control system is brief reviewed. Its main contents include intelligent device and instrument, distributed control system, fieldbus and industry Ethernet. In the past several years, the standard of Ethernet had been improved much especially on determination, speed and information priority. Recently, industrial Ethernet has been combined with fieldbus and gradually infiltrate into the layer of industrial field devices. After stating the use of Ethernet in industry field and giving some examples, the paper comes to a conclusion: the combination of Ethernet and fieldbus is the future of industry automation. Keywords: Industrial automation, Fieldbus, Ethernet

Introduction

to adopt a uniform standard. With the automation control system striding forward both in opening and technique standardization, it's a hot topic that web, Ethernet and TCP/IP have been used in all kinds of complicated industry control system, because of the rapid development of the exchanging technology the impediment of adopting Ethernet in control area is eliminated greatly. Recently, many organizations and companies are working on the implementation of seamless connection of Ethernet and fieldbus, this developing trend makes Ethernet extend into lower layer. We can foresee that it will be changed that different kinds of fieldbus products can not be directly linked, used and operated each other.

Sensor technology, communication technology and computer technology are the base of modern information technology[1]. With the rapid development of IT technology and the increasing requirement of industrial automation, the uses of the industrial control network will be wider and wider[2]. Different from data information network, what we need in the industrial control field is of high speed and reasonable price, which is instant, steady and exact[3]. Ethernet technology support most of network protocols and be widely used in data information network. Ethernet has many advantages such as high transmission speed, lower power consuming, convenient installation, better compatibility, better opening and support more equipments. Recent years, with the development of the network technology and the increasing requirement of the network performance, a new field control technique of industry Ethernet is appeared. The opening of the Ethernet protocol make the industry automation field has hoped

Evolvement of the Industrial Automation

In the industrial automatic control system area, people always need a high speed and low cost network for dispersive field equipments controlling. In the past, distributed control system (DCS) were widely used as a mature technology, but in the DCS, machine or plant automation was based on a centralized system with individual connections to each field device (e.g. sensor and actuators), the framework of the DCS shown as figure 1.

Fig.1 Framework of DCS

Assembly mistakes were easily made but not so easily solved. Further, it wasnt possible to set-up and
1-4244-1135-1/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE.
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The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Measurement and Instruments

ICEMI2007

maintain field device centrally. Users had to go to each device in turn to change its operating parameters. For solving above problems, people devised fieldbus control systems(FCS), FCS is a kind of industrial networking system developed to replace centralized parallel wiring and prevailing analog signal transmission, the aim is to create a single-cable solution that could provide substantial cost reductions, the framework of the FCS shown as figure 2. Primarily, this is aimed at design, commissioning, engineering and system start-up. Goals include fewer drawings, easier cable assembly and faster system start-up. The FCS is mainly used at the field level with interfacing capabilities downward to the sensor/actuator level as well as upwards to the production and enterprise levels. Today, communications increasingly occur horizontally at the field level as well as vertically through several hierarchical levels. FCS is a powerful and versatile tow-wire industrial automatic control system. The bus cable is installed around the machine or plant and field devices are connected to it, decreasing the number of drawings and reducing mistakes during assembly. FCS also brings benefits for operational phases, which helps reduce total cost of ownership. Devices connected to FCS are smart, they deliver

information about their health and about the quality of the measured value. For example they can call for maintenance, thus preventing or reducing downtime.

Fig 2.

Framework of FCS

Nowadays, FCS technology has various standards belongs to different corporation alliance, such FIELDBUS FOUNDATION, PROFIBUS, CANBUS, MODBUS, HART and so on. Every kinds of fieldbus has their own protocol and protocols are incompatible, harmonize different devices will pay out abnormal cost, and that will limit user to choose devices in a wider range. Ownership always needs a faster, cheaper and easier to be integrated network in the process control and automation industry. Ethernet gives a good solution. In the past several years, the standard of Ethernet had been improved much especially on determination, speed and information priority, the framework of industry Ethernet shown as figure 3. Because of the rapid development of the

Fig. 3 Framework of industry Ethernet

exchanging technology the impediment of adopting Ethernet in control area is eliminated greatly. Now many organizations and companies are engaged in mixing Ethernet and existing fieldbus protocol
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together and spreading it in plant level.

Advantages of the Industrial Ethernet

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The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Measurement and Instruments

ICEMI2007

Ethernet already gradually monopolize topper information management and communications in commercial computers communicating and process controlling area, there is a trend that Ethernet directly apply to industrial field. Compare with currently fieldbus technology, Ethernet has below advantages: 3.1 Wider applications At the present, Ethernet becomes the widest applied computer network technology and supported by all companies. Most of the programming languages support Ethernet application development, for example Java, Visual C++, VB etc. these programming languages widely be used and have good development tendency. Fieldbus adopt Ethernet technology will provided with abundant developing tools and environments. 3.2 Lower cost The hardware development of Ethernet has been widely supported and highly regarded by the developers because of its widely application, user has abundant products to choose and the price comparative lower. Now, the price of Ethernet network card greatly lower then the correlative products of Profibus and FF etc, with the improvement of the IC technology, the price will decrease gradually. 3.3 Higher data rate Currently, the 100M communication rate Ethernet is applying widely, 1G Ethernet technology maturate gradually, 10G Ethernet technology is researching by many companies, its communication rate is greatly fast than current fieldbus. High speed Ethernet will conform to the requirements of the higher bandwidth. 3.4 Resourceful software and hardware Since the Ethernet has been used for many years, we are experienced in the design and use of it, and also familiar with its technology. Plentiful software resource and experience of design will greatly reduce the cost of the system development, the speed of evolvement and promotion will be accelerated. 3.5 Great sustainable development potential In the information era, enterprises survival and development depend greatly on a rapid and efficient communication management network, the evolution
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of information and communication technology will more and more rapid and mature, it guarantee Ethernet technology sustainable development constantly. If industrial control system adopt Ethernet technology as the communicate platform between the field devices, the problem of fieldbus technology dissociate itself from the computer network mainstream technology evolution will be avoided. Consequently fieldbus and common network technology will promote each other and develop together, that will greatly reduce additional research devotion for technique upgrading, currently fieldbus technology can't compare with this merit.

Ethernet Will Bring the New Automation Standard

When applying Ethernet technology in industrial automation, special demands are made of the components used. The most important are: Industry-compatible installation, easy network administration and diagnosis, fast response times in the exchange of process data (real-time capability), system-wide cross-vendor engineering, and high availability of machines and systems. In addition, system operators attach importance to being able to integrate existing components and applications into the new systems. These demands need a new Ethernet-based automation standard. The specific requirements for Ethernet networks in an industrial environment are: System-specific cable routing, specific degree of networking for each machine/system, linear network structures, rugged industry-compatible cables and connectors with special requirements fulfilled in terms of EMC and temperature. The new standard will based on these principles and provide the device manufacturer with clear specifications for device interfaces and the wiring for them. The network installation guide provides the system manufacturer /operator with simple rules for the installation of Ethernet networks. According to the new standard, machines and systems are divided into technological modules, each of which is comprised of mechanical, electrical and software. The functionality of the technological

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The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Measurement and Instruments

ICEMI2007

modules is encapsulated in the form of industrial Ethernet components. From the outside, the Ethernet components can be accessed via interfaces with standardized definitions. They can be combined with one another like building blocks as required and easily reused. Due to the open engineering interface, industrial Ethernet components from different manufacturers can be imported into a higher-level engineering tool (interconnection editor), after which the communication relations between the components are configured graphically. Industrial Ethernet will allow direct interfacing of decentralized field devices on network. This will supports flat communication hierarchies in automation. All the devices used are connected in a consistent network structure and therefore provide open communication throughout the entire production system. The signals from the field devices (distributed periphery) are processed directly in the assigned control. Configuration is performed via a device description file (GSD). Integration of decentralized field devices is an optimal add-on to distributed automation. A combination of the two can be implemented in an Ethernet network at any time.

opening subject research foundation.

Reference
[1]Zhou Xiaobin, Fei Minrui. The Current Status of Application and Developing Prospect of Ethernet in Process Automation Area, PROCESS AUTOMATION INSTRUMENTATION, Vol.22, No.10, Oct. ,2001:1-4 [2]Cheng Gong, Yang Dianfu, Li Jia. Development and Prospect of Ethernet Technology Used in Fieldbus, Computer Engineering, Vol.27, No12, Dec., 2001:1-4 [3]Feng Dongqin, Jin Jianxin, Chu Jian. Study on Industrial Ethernet, Information and Control, Vol.32, No.3, June, 2003:219-224 [4]Chen Jimin, Wang Zhi, Sun You xian, The Research Status Quo and Prospect of Industrial Ethernet, Control and Instruments in Chemical Industry, 2001, 28(6):1-4 [5]WAL SH G C, YE H. Scheduling of networked control systems [J], IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 2001, 21(1):57-65 [6]LIAN F G, MOYN E J R, T ILBURY D M. Performance evaluation of control network s: Ethernet, control net and devicenet [J], IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 2001, 21 (1):66-83 [7]YAN G S, CHEN X, AL TY J L. Design issues and implementation of Internet-based process control [J], Control Engineering Practice, 2003, 11(6):709-720

Conclusion

After discussing the developing trend of fieldbus in industry control field and giving some expectations, we can consider following four aspects will be the developing orientation of fieldbus: industrial Ethernet is gradually replacing control network which was waiting to be determined for special subordination in the past; recently, industrial Ethernet will be combined with fieldbus; industrial Ethernet technology will gradually infiltrate into the layer of industrial field devices; and the industrial IT represented by industrial Ethernet will re-establish enterprise network model. Ethernet technology will bring an innovation in industrial control field. Acknowledgments This subject is supported by The Ministry of Education and Liaoning Province Key Laboratory of The Integrated Automation in Process Industry
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Author Biography
Chen gang: Born in 30, January, 1971. Lecture of Harbin Institute of Technology, got Doctor degree in Engineering in January of 2006. The main research direction are computer vision measurement and industrial fieldbus control technology.

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