1.2. About Fieldbus

1.2. About Fieldbus

 

Fieldbus is an industry open standard to operate the plant devices including sensor, button, and motor driver and operating interface with the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) through a single communication cable.

Fieldbus provides intelligent service such as centrally monitoring or reconfiguring the overall network status and has the advantage of sending and receiving more detailed information (Operating mode setting, sensor error information etc.) than just the simple ON/OFF information with the sensor or switch.

Because Fieldbus uses a single cable, it reduces the time and cost required for wiring and simplified wiring is also advantageous in maintenance and repair. And unlike the non-deterministic response of Ethernet, Fieldbus provides guaranteed response speed of the data to satisfy the industrial usage for which critical time characteristic is significant.

 

 

Figure 1.1 Fieldbus Network and Master/Slave Device

 

1 master device and multiple slave devices are connected in 1 Fieldbus network. Mast device searches/manages the overall network and exchanges data with the slave devices. Generally the PLC is the master device and other sensor, button and controller are the slave devices.