CONFIGURATION, IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT OF HETEROGENEOUS INDUSTRIAL COMMUNICATION-NETWORKS USING FIELDBUS TECHNOLOGY

Fieldbuses represent the lower communication layers of industrial comm unication systems. There are large efforts in standardisation and in t he introduction of open fieldbus protocols. However, users, manufactur ers and first of all system integrators of fieldbuses have to support not only a single fieldbus, but a number of different systems. The eno rmous efforts in preparation, management and training reduce the econo mic advantages of fieldbus use. There is a global agreement that there will be no universal fieldbus during the next years, due to the diffe rent requirements of the technical processes. This fact has caused an increasing research on universal concepts and solutions that will redu ce the efforts in preparation, configuration, installation and managem ent of heterogeneous industrial communication networks, relying on mor e than one fieldbus. In addition, the integration of the systems into existing LAN-based enterprise networks is important for future develop ments. The article shows appropriate concepts and implementations for heterogeneous networks based on open fieldbus systems.