Home » Security Bloggers Network » FOUNDATION Fieldbus

FOUNDATION Fieldbus

Introduction

Foundation Fieldbus was designed to replace analog connections in the refining, petrochemical and nuclear industries. It was first proposed in 1984 and standardized in 1996. Foundation Fieldbus is a digital, bi-directional communication protocol and has been developed by FieldComm Group.

Foundation Fieldbus has been designed specifically for device-to-device communication. (Devices are also called field instruments and the term is used interchangeably.) Thus, during a host system failure, devices can communicate with each other, maintaining continuous and safe operation.

Foundation Fieldbus provides real-time control between device and host systems. The host system is the system where the software is installed, and it acts as an HMI (Human-Machine Interface). They are usually laptops or any handheld device. Thus, using Foundation Fieldbus, communication can happen between:

1. Device-to-device: In this, the devices on the fields directly share and exchange data between them
2. Device-to-host systems: In this, communication happens between device and a host system which has HMI software installed on it

Advantages of Foundation Fieldbus

Foundation Fieldbus has many advantages over other protocols. Some of them are:

1. Device-to-device communication
2. Multiple devices can be connected on a single cable
3. Fewer cable trays and I/O cards (input/output)
4. Fewer devices
5. Better and faster commissioning
6. Better and fast diagnostics
7.  Easy upgrades and addition of devices
8. Signal distortion detection and high immunity to noise.

Foundation Fieldbus implementation

To cater to different needs in the environment, Foundation Fieldbus can be implemented in two ways:

1. Foundation Fieldbus H1: This operates at 31.25 Kbit/s and is used for connecting field devices and host systems. This implementation used twisted-pair wiring for communication and data transfer. H1 is the most common implementation
2. HSE (high-speed Ethernet): As the name says, it operates at 100/1000 Mbit/s. It is generally used for connecting I/O subsystems, gateways and host systems. It uses IEEE (Read more...)