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Fieldbus wins—not wars

As time-sensitive networking gains traction in industrial networks, the reigning fieldbus factions are positioning themselves for the future.

Michael Bowne, executive director of PI North America, presenting at the general assembly meeting.
Michael Bowne, executive director of PI North America, presenting at the general assembly meeting.

Recently, I attended the PI North America general assembly meeting, a gathering of individuals representing the member organizations of this fieldbus community who come together to get an update on new developments within the group, as well as how industry trends are impacting the evolution of Profibus and Profinet.

Of particular interest this year is the emergence of time-sensitive networking (TSN) on the factory floor. Specifically, the industry as a whole has been investigating how this IEEE set of standards can turn Ethernet into a deterministic network, thereby enabling real-time industrial applications—sans the proprietary protocols of the past.

The technology will enable the consolidation of multiple services over a single, standard physical network, which will help manufacturers who are trying to figure out how to deal with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the of convergence of IT and OT. However, it also has the potential to eclipse the existing fieldbus landscape—that lower communication layer that has historically delivered all of the deterministic capabilities that TSN promises but using different flavors of Ethernet. For example, while different suppliers offer industrial Ethernet networks, they are still based on conflicting connectivity methods that make data exchange difficult.

Recently, however, OPC Foundations’ OPC UA, an open communication protocol for information exchange between machines as well as up into the enterprise, evolved from a client/server architecture to a publish/subscribe (Pub/Sub) set-up, which enables mapping to TSN. Together, the technologies are well positioned to efficiently exchange IIoT data from the device to the cloud.

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