Feature Focus: Fieldbus Architecture: A Tale of Two Buses
John DeGaspari · Mechanical Engineering · 2001
This article focuses on field bus technology, a digital two-way conul1unications protocol. It is designed to take advantage of intelligent instrumentation equipped with microprocessors to communicate between the field and the control room. Because it can communicate large quantities of data from the field devices, industrial networks tying together field bus instruments open the way for complex control and automation tasks. As field bus evolves, some think that computer networking will play an increasingly important role and improve the performance in the plant. Both Profibus and Fieldbus Foundation provide for Ethernet capability. Wireless communication is also likely to play a potential role in field bus systems. There is a potential for wireless in data acquisition. Issues still needed to be worked out: electrical storms can interfere with communications and wires must be strung to power the devices.