What is Industrial Ethernet?

Introduction
Industrial Ethernet fits in at the host-level in the control system architecture. The days of proprietary control system backbones are fast ending. Until date, most control systems have used "backbone" networking with proprietary hardware and protocol at the host-level. Some systems have indeed used Ethernet or variations thereof, and even TCP/IP, but even so the application layer remained proprietary. As a result, the network as a whole is still proprietary. Although open standard field-level networks in various forms have been used in systems for more than a decade, system manufacturers have been slow to change the backbone and opening up their systems. The reason may be that they are comfortable being the only supplier of the "guts" for their DCS, such as controllers and gateways. As Ethernet now has become deterministic and industrially hardened, users are demanding Ethernet solutions for their system backbones. A new cottage industry of companies making control products, accessories and software based on Ethernet has emerged. Many users believed that Ethernet is a magic bullet that would solve all interoperability problems. However, users that connected equipment from more than one supplier soon realized that there are thousands of different protocols on Ethernet and started to demand Ethernet products using a standard application layer. Many consortiums have realized this and are working intensely on open networking technologies based on Ethernet media and new alliances are frequently announced. Users need to choose between FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE, EtherNet/IP, Modbus/TCP, IDA as well as PROFInet (a.k.a. CbA) and OPC-DX etc. host-level technologies for their plant. Although manufacturers of equipment using proprietary networking, or Ethernet with a proprietary application layer, may at first be reluctant to change, we have come to a point where they like it or not - will have to adopt one of these standards for their products, its just a question of which one or ones. For end-users as well as manufacturers the decision of which technology to chose may not be based on the Ethernet solution alone, rather the whole system architecture that comes along with it should be taken into account.
Operation Engineering Maintenance Business

Host-Level

Field-Level

RIO Conventional Devices

Figure 1 Field- and Host- level networking in system architecture So how is Industrial Ethernet different from the COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) grade Ethernet used in the office? Ethernet for mission critical industrial use consider brutal industrial conditions and meet requirements such as ingress and surge protection, interoperability, redundancy of media, ports and devices for greater fault tolerance. Referring again to the trusty OSI model (figure 2) the requirements for Industrial Ethernet can be identified as need for an open standards-based application layer, and for industrially hardened networking components at the physical layer.

Industrial Protocol

Application . Transport Network Data Link Physical OSI Model UDP IP Ethernet

Industrial Hardware

Figure 2 Anatomy of Industrial Ethernet: Industrial grade hardware and protocol Another characteristic of Industrial Ethernet is that the protocols tend to use UDP/IP rather than TCP/IP used in the office environment.

Industrial Grade Hardware

For the networking hardware, Industrial Ethernet has more stringent requirements than a regular office LAN. The applications are often mission critical and environmental stress calls for industrially hardened hubs and switches, and industrial grade cables and connectors.

Media redundancy
Modern Ethernet uses a hub-based star topology. Since only one device is connected per wire, this already limits the impact of a wire failure. However, shared and switching hubs are active components requiring power. If a hub fails, the entire network goes down. Therefore, there is a need for both wire and hub power redundancy. The basic form of network redundancy is media (wire) duplication whereby an Ethernet port is "split" into two and the signal is run in two paths forming a ring. Although regular office gear can be used to form a ring the standard IEEE "spanning tree" algorithm that resolves which of the two paths the signals takes is too slow taking minutes to changeover during which communication does not work. However, some industrial switches take less than a second to change around to a working path. The beauty of media redundancy is that it works even if a device only has a single Ethernet port. A popular scheme connects single port devices to a switch that has the redundant ring topology capability. I.e. this scheme adds some redundancy to devices that have no inherent redundancy. The ring can be implemented using UTP cable or fiber optic media.

Environment
The regular RJ45 connector used in the office LAN is also suitable for the control room, which usually is a benign environment. However, if Ethernet has to run beyond the rack room into the field then a more rugged solution is required. Available options include an industrial grade RJ45 connector that has an IP67 screw-on rubber "boot" that can handle high temperature, humidity and vibration. The industrial RJ45 solution has the advantage that it is compatible with the regular RJ45 connector. Another alternative is an Ethernet variety of the M12 connector. These connectors come with accessories as molded cord sets, bulkhead pass-through, end-caps etc. to simplify a completely industrial installation.

Field mounted industrial grade Ethernet switches using the IP67 connectors are available. Industrial switches or transceivers etc. mounted in a panel shall be DIN rail mounted. Unlike commercial switches, these operate over an industrial temperature range.

UTP wiring for 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet is limited to 100 m. For longer distances or between buildings fiber optics should be used instead.

Industrial Application Layer Protocol

The second key aspect of Industrial Ethernet is an application layer tailored for control and automation needs. Every Industrial Ethernet has a different application layer rendering them non-interoperable with each other. However, among the devices of the same protocol the provide varying degrees of interoperability. Industrial Ethernet solutions such as FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE, EtherNet/IP and Modbus/TCP are tried and tested fieldbus protocols encapsulated in IP and Ethernet frames. IDA is a new protocol built from scratch. PROFInet and OPC-DX are similar but radically different from the others not being associated with any particular fieldbus protocol, but instead using a Microsoft DCOM platform from Windows and typically using computers as "proxy" or server to put data from any underlying fieldbus or subsystem to another through the DCOM environment. There are two major aspects of the application layer, the first is peer-topeer communication of real-time control loop information between devices and the other is transaction based device parameterization from the host computer. Modbus/TCP does not support peer-to-peer communication.

Interoperability
Ethernet and TCP/IP alone do not provide any interoperability. Devices using different application layers can coexist without conflict but will not talk. To enable meaningful interchange of data there is a need for a standard application layer. Key features of the application layer are the object-model, device profiles and device descriptions (DD). Devices throughout the system need to have a common understanding of data to enable easy system integration, e.g. there must be a specific parameter to write the loop mode and a specific value to represent "manual" mode. Note that not all Industrial Ethernet protocols go to this level of interoperability. FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE specifies a distributed model with many standard parameters and their meaning for direct peer-to-peer interchange between devices and provides a device description file mechanism allowing all parameters to be described to a host computer for device diagnostics, monitoring and online as well as offline configuration before devices are connected. Although six different Industrial Ethernet protocols is too many, it is still far better than the present situation where nearly every Ethernet solution is proprietary. The lack of standard application layer caused many early adopters of Ethernet to get less interoperability instead of a more open system. A typical example is one Ethernet-based remote-I/O system not being able to talk to an Ethernet controller from another company. These devices usually only communicate with the manufacturer's own tools and drivers. If you intend to buy Ethernet devices, ask the supplier with which other devices the equipment will interoperate. Using a single protocol with a well-defined application layer throughout the plant simplifies system configuration, checking and documentation. Therefore it is a good idea to use field-level and host-level networking technologies that share the same industrial application layer simply transferred onto Ethernet and UDP/TCP/IP, e.g. FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE (H1), EtherNet/IP (ControlNet), Modbus/TCP (Modbus/RTU) result in a very homogenous system that can be configured using one single tool. OPC-DX and PROFInet are both not associated with any particular field-level network, rather they are gateways targeted to link

heterogeneous networks of devices configured individually by their own particular tools. When network technologies are mixed in the plant, several configuration tools are required and special care must be taken not only with mapping and data type conversion but also with range scaling and translation of enumerated variables.

Complete system configuration

OPC-DX and PROFInet are alike in the sense that they deal only with the linking of a subset of dynamic variables from one network to another through servers or proxies. They do not deal with device parameterization, diagnostics and control strategy download from a workstation. This therefore is done by separate tools for each particular device or subsystem. IDA, OPC-DX and PROFInet use a scheme whereby after the control strategy has been programmed in a device an application specific file is generated by the individual configuration tool and then loaded into a connection editor that links together the applications in the various devices. Modbus/TCP does not have a standardized model for control strategy download but does allow a device specific download to pass through. FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE has standard function blocks for control strategy programming and transducer blocks for device parameterisation. HSE supports direct peer-to-peer communication between blocks in different devices using standardized links. The blocks contain standard parameters that are described in device description files so system configuration can also be done through HSE without the need to exchange application specific information and without having to be connected to the devices. HSE is thus a homogenous solution of network topology configuration, control strategy programming and device parameterisation from a single tool. IDA is based on a scheme with web pages that runs on a web server in the device itself for device parameterisation. This means parameterisation can only be done while the device is connected but it can be done using a simple web browser found in any computer.

Complete redundancy
In many industrial applications Ethernet media redundancy is not enough to get adequate fault tolerance because if in the hub-and-spoke topology a hub fails, the entire network goes down. Therefore, there is a need for a resilient network design that duplicates the entire network, not just the wires. Whereas media redundancy is handled at the Ethernet level giving a first line of protection against damaged network cables, further fault tolerance measures are required at the application layer to handle failed devices and hubs. IDA allows for a scheme of redundant devices on the network by assigning different "strengths" (priorities) to the data sources. The primary has a higher priority than the secondary. The primary is therefore always the first choice when utilizing the data, but if the primary device fails the data from the secondary device will be used instead. HSE has a redundancy scheme where every device can have two ports, one for the primary and one for the secondary network. Devices can also be arranged in redundant pairs of primary and secondary device. Several redundancy combinations are possible based on these capabilities. It is even possible for both the primary and secondary devices in a pair to be connected to both primary and secondary networks resulting in a device with four ports all having different IP address. Devices continuously exchange diagnostics messages to discover device and network path failure and adapt themselves to the new conditions. Therefore multiple device and network faults can be circumvented and the system still operates. The networks that do not support full redundancy may have the option to fail operational, meaning that they hold the last value in case of network failure. However, this means an open loop without real control and may not be safe for all applications. The HSE and IDA schemes for redundancy can be combined with Ethernet media redundancy to get an architecture that handles multiple faults. E.g. combining Ethernet media redundancy with complete HSE redundancy you get a dual ring architecture.

Safety
If communications break down it is often prudent to shut the affected loops down to a safe value since operation cannot be done safely without a measurement. An Industrial Ethernet must therefore be able to detect communications failures very quickly to shut down the loop by substituting a safe value instead and preferably also setting the status as bad. Some controls can afford to run in open loop mode holding the last value and indeed shut down can be costly and should perhaps even be avoided. Therefore it should be possible to select operational or failsafe failure mode on a loop-by-loop basis. Regular Microsoft DCOM can take as long as six minutes to detect communications breakdown, but OPCDX and PROFInet which both are based on DCOM overcomes this limitation using a special "PingFactor" mechanism that continuously checks the integrity of the communications in order to detect breakdown much

faster. When failure is detected the value is substituted with a failsafe value for safety or holds last value for availability. FOUNDATION HSE has taken the safety aspect further by including a shutdown channel in the function block control strategy programming language. Values linked between function blocks contain a status that enables a fault state signal to be propagated e.g. from a devices that has detected a sensor failure all the way to the actuator where the loop shutdown actually occurs. IDA implements a sophisticated safety mechanism that also has received a favourable report from TUV. It should be noted that this advanced design makes the network suitable for SIL3 applications without requiring network redundancy.

Platform
It is possible to embed OPC-DX or PROFInet in a device provided the device is using one of the operating systems, such as Windows, which supports Microsoft DCOM. Since there is a plethora of embedded operating systems of which many do not support DCOM, very often an external computer has to work as a server or proxy for the device. IDA requires that the device have an embedded web server for the device parameterisation web pages. FOUNDATION HSE, EtherNet/IP, IDA and Modbus/TCP do not use DCOM hence communications can be established without the need to involve Windows technologies.

Conclusion
Although Industrial Ethernet is not yet ready for the field-level, it is the new standard for the host-level networking. Use Ethernet and IP based host-level networking using the same application layer as the fieldlevel networking. Use DCOM based solutions when heterogeneous systems and networks have to be integrated. Build industrial networks using industrial grade gear. Sidebar:

One size does not fit all.

Just like Ethernet is not used for every connection in the IT world, nor can Industrial Ethernet be used for everything in the industrial world. E.g. your mouse and keyboard does not connect to your PC through Ethernet, nor does your monitor, Palm Pilot cradle, scanner, mobile phone or video camera etc. In the IT world there is also RS232, USB, IrDA, Firewire, Bluetooth, ADSL and even VGA etc. Similarly, in the control world FOUNDATION H1 Fieldbus and perhaps others too are still necessary where Industrial Ethernet does not meet the requirements. See the PC peripherals as its sensors and actuators.

References
1. "Fieldbuses for Process Control - Engineering, Operation and Maintenance", Jonas Berge, The Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA), ISBN 1-55617-760-7, http://books.isa.org 2. Ethernet in Process Control, Jonas Berge, http://ethernet.industrialnetworking.com/articles/i03_processcontrol.asp 3. The worlds first commercial application of HSE, Jonas Berge, http://ethernet.industrialnetworking.com/articles/i04_oilplatform.asp About the Author: Jonas Berge is the author of the book "Fieldbuses for Process Control - Engineering, Operation and Maintenance" available from ISA that also covers Industrial Ethernet.