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Sunday, December 2, 2012

What is Profibus DP/FMS/PA?


ProfiBus (PROcess FIeld BUS) is a widely accepted international networking standard, generally found in process control and in larger assembly and material dealing with machines. It helps single-cable wiring of multi-input sensor blocks, pneumatic valves, complex intelligent devices, smaller sub-networks (corresponding AS-i), and operator interfaces. ProfiBus is nearly common in Europe and likewise popular in North America, South America, and parts of Africa and Asia. It's an open, vendor independent standard. It adheres to the OSI model and ensures that devices from a variety of different vendors can communicate together easily and effectively. It has been standardized under the German National Standard as DIN 19 245  part  1 and 2 and, in addition, has also been ratified under the European National Standard EN 50170 Volume 2.

The development of ProfiBus was initiated by the BMFT (German Federal Ministry of Research  and Technology) in cooperation with a several  of automation manufacturers in 1989. The bus interfacing hardware is carried out on ASIC (application specific integrated  circuit) chips produced by a number of vendors, and is based on the RS-485 standard  as well as the European EN50170 Electrical Specification. The standard is supported by the ProfiBus Trade Organization, whose website can be found at www.profibus.com. ProfiBus uses 9-Pin D-type connectors (impedance terminated) or 12mm quick disconnect connectors. The number of nodes is limited to 127. The distance supported is up to 24 Km (with repeaters and fiber optic transmission), with speeds varying from 9600 bps to 12 Mbps. The message size could be up to 244 bytes of data per node per message (12 bytes of overhead for a most message length of 256 bytes), while the medium access control mechanisms are polling and token passing.


ProfiBus supports two main types of devices, namely, masters and slaves:
• Master devices control the bus and once they have the right access the bus, they might transfer messages without remote request. These are referred to as active stations
• Slave devices are usually peripheral devices  i.e. transmitters/sensors and actuators. They might solely acknowledge received messages or, at the request of a master, transmit messages to that master. These are additionally referred to as passive stations.

There are several versions of the standard, particularly, ProfiBus DP (master/slave), ProfiBus FMS (multi-master/peer to peer), and ProfiBus PA (intrinsically safe).
• ProfiBus DP (distributed peripheral) permits the use of multiple master devices, by which case every slave device is assigned to one master. This implies that multiple masters can read inputs from the device but only one master can write outputs to that device. ProfiBus-DP is designed for high speed data transfer at the sensor/actuator stage (as opposed to  ProfiBus- FMS which tends to focus on the higher automation level) and relies around DIN 19 245 parts 1 and 2 since 1993. It is suitable as a replacement for the costly wiring of 24V and 4-20 mA measurement signals. The data exchange for ProfiBus-DP is usually cyclic in nature. The central controller, which acts as the master, reads the input data from the slave and sends the output information back to the slave. The bus cycle time is much  shorter than the program cycle time of the controller (lower than 10 mS).


ProfiBus supports two main types of devices, namely, masters and slaves:
• Master devices control the bus and once they have the right access the bus, they might transfer messages without remote request. These are referred to as active stations
• Slave devices are usually peripheral devices  i.e. transmitters/sensors and actuators. They might solely acknowledge received messages or, at the request of a master, transmit messages to that master. These are additionally referred to as passive stations

There are several versions of the standard, particularly, ProfiBus DP (master/slave),
ProfiBus FMS (multi-master/peer to peer), and ProfiBus PA (intrinsically safe).
ProfiBus DP (distributed peripheral) permits the use of multiple master devices, by which case every slave device is assigned to one master. This implies that multiple masters can read inputs from the device but only one master can write outputs to that device. ProfiBus-DP is designed for high speed data transfer at the sensor/actuator stage (as opposed to  ProfiBus- FMS which tends to focus on the higher automation level) and relies around DIN 19 245 parts 1 and 2 since 1993. It is suitable as a replacement for the costly wiring of 24V and 4-20 mA measurement signals. The data exchange for ProfiBus-DP is usually cyclic in nature. The central controller, which acts as the master, reads the input data from the slave and sends the output information back to the slave. The bus cycle time is much  shorter than the program cycle time of the controller (lower than 10 mS)
ProfiBus FMS (Fieldbus message specification) is a peer to peer messaging format, which permits masters to communicate  with one another. Simply as in ProfiBus DP, up to 126 nodes are available and all will be masters if desired. FMS messages consume more overhead than DP messages
• ‘COMBI mode’ is when FMS and DP are used simultaneously  in the same network, and some units (such as  Synergetic's DP/FMS masters) support this. That is mostly used in conditions where a PLC is being used in conjunction with a PC, and the primary master communicates with the secondary master  through FMS. DP messages are sent via the same network to I/O devices

The ProfiBus PA protocol is the same as the most recent ProfiBus DP with V1 diagnostic extensions, except that voltage and current ranges are lowered to meet the requirements of intrinsic security (class I division II) for the process industry. Many DP/FMS master  cards support ProfiBus PA, but barriers are required to convert between DP and PA. PA devices are usually powered by the network at intrinsically safe voltage and current level, utilizing the transmission technique specified in IEC 61158-2. (which Foundation Fieldbus H1 uses as well)