Development of a Gateway to PROFIBUS for Remote Diagnostics
Hassan Kaghazchi, Donal Heffernan · 2004
With the increased use of fielbuses in distributed control systems, the management and maintenance of these networks becomes an issue, especially where only a limited knowledge base is available at the plant level. Continuous monitoring of fieldbus networks offers the advantage of identifying some of the potential problems before they lead to loss of communications and plant shut down. Remote monitoring capability offers the advantage of providing access to a wider pool of experts to diagnose network problems. This research will demonstrate the concept of a passive gateway as a proxy between PROFIBUS and Ethernet networks. The gateway can record diagnostics, configuration and error telegrams, and will use a fuzzy logic approach in determining the potential problems.