A significant number of process control and factory automation systems use PROFIBUS as the underlying fieldbus communication network. The process of properly setting up a PROFIBUS network is not a straightforward task. In fact, a number of network parameters must be set for guaranteeing the required levels of timeliness and dependability. Engineering PROFIBUS networks is even more subtle when t...

Profibus networks are widely used as the communication infrastructure for supporting distributed computer-controlled applications. Most of the times, these applications impose strict real-time requirements. Profibus-DP has gradually become the preferred Profibus application profile. It is usually implemented as a mono-master Profibus network, and is optimised for speed and efficiency. The aim o...

Profibus networks are often used as the communication infrastructure for supporting distributed computer-controlled applications. Very often these applications impose strict real-time requirements. A widely used class of Profibus networks is the Profibus-DP profile, which may be implemented as mono or multi-master network. The aim of this paper is to analyse the real-time behaviour of both mono...

Field buses have been developed to fulfill real-time requirements of applications related to factory automation. However, they are limited in their extension, and can only cover geographical areas such as factory halls or buildings. In order to reduce this drawback a possible solution is to connect field bus segments using interworking devices and a backbone network. This backbone could be an A...

PROFIBUS is an international standard (IEC 61158) for factory-floor communications, with some hundreds of thousands of world-wide installations. However, it does not include any wireless capabilities. In this paper we propose a hybrid wired/wireless PROFIBUS solution where most of the design options are made in order to guarantee the proper real-time behaviour of the overall network. We address...

Profibus is based on a simplified Timed Token (TT) protocol, which is a well-proved solution for real-time communication systems. However, Profibus differences to the TT protocol prevent the application of the usual TT analysis. The main reason is that, conversely to the TT protocol, in the worst case, only one high-priority message is processed per token visit. The major contribution of this p...

Predictive Maintenance capabilities Intelligent Alarm Management Self-surveillance in accordance with NE107 Service Management Histograms for Valve Positionand Response-History Data collected up to 60 months The valve diagnostic software VALcareTM is available as Device Type Manager (DTM) for integration into control systems based on the Field Device Tool (FDT) technology such as the Foxboro I/...