Industrial Ethernet (IE) is the use of

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

in an industrial environment with protocols that provide determinism and real-time control. Protocols for industrial Ethernet include EtherCAT,

EtherNet/IP EtherNet/IP (IP = Industrial Protocol) is an industrial network protocol that adapts the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) to standard Ethernet. EtherNet/IP is one of the leading industrial protocols in the United States and is widely used in a ...

, PROFINET, POWERLINK, SERCOS III, CC-Link IE, and Modbus TCP. Many industrial Ethernet protocols use a modified

Media Access Control In IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards, the medium access control (MAC, also called media access control) sublayer is the layer that controls the hardware responsible for interaction with the wired, optical or wireless transmission medium. The MAC sublay ...

(MAC) layer to provide low latency and determinism. Some microcontrollers such as

Sitara Sitara or Sithara may refer to: People * Sithara (actress) (born 1973), Indian actress * Sithara (singer) (born 1986), Indian singer * Sitara Devi (1920–2014), Indian dancer * Sitara (actress), Pakistani film actress * Sitara Hewitt, a British ...

provide industrial Ethernet support. Industrial Ethernet can also refer to the use of standard Ethernet protocols with rugged connectors and extended temperature switches in an industrial environment, for

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

process control An industrial process control in continuous production processes is a discipline that uses industrial control systems to achieve a production level of consistency, economy and safety which could not be achieved purely by human manual control. ...

. Components used in plant process areas must be designed to work in harsh environments of temperature extremes, humidity, and vibration that exceed the ranges for

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...

equipment intended for installation in controlled environments. The use of

fiber-optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...

Ethernet variants reduces the problems of electrical noise and provides electrical isolation. Some industrial networks emphasized deterministic delivery of transmitted data, whereas Ethernet used

collision detection Collision detection is the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. Collision detection is a classic issue of computational geometry and has applications in various computing fields, primarily in computer grap ...

which made transport time for individual data packets difficult to estimate with increasing network traffic. Typically, industrial uses of Ethernet employ full-duplex standards and other methods so that collisions do not unacceptably influence transmission times.

Application environment

Industrial use requires consideration of the environment in which the equipment must operate.

Factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

equipment must tolerate a wider range of temperature, vibration, physical contamination and electrical noise than equipment installed in dedicated information-technology

wiring closet A wiring cupboard is a small room commonly found in institutional buildings, such as schools and offices, where electrical connections are made. While they are used for many purposes, their most common use is for computer networking where it may ...

s. Since critical process control may rely on an Ethernet link, economic cost of interruptions may be high and

high availability High availability (HA) is a characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period. Modernization has resulted in an increased reliance on these systems. F ...

is therefore an essential criterion. Industrial Ethernet networks must interoperate with both current and legacy systems, and must provide predictable performance and maintainability. In addition to physical compatibility and low-level transport protocols, a practical industrial Ethernet system must also provide interoperability of higher levels of the

OSI model The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model) is a conceptual model that 'provides a common basis for the coordination of SOstandards development for the purpose of systems interconnection'. In the OSI reference model, the communications ...

. An industrial network must provide security both from intrusions from outside the plant, and from inadvertent or unauthorized use within the plant.Perry S. Marshall, John S. Rinaldi (2004). ''How to Plan, Install and Maintain TCP/IP Ethernet Networks''. ISA. . pp. 1–4. When an industrial network must connect to an office network or external networks, a firewall system can be inserted to control exchange of data between the networks. This network separation preserves the performance and reliability of the industrial network. Industrial environments are often much harsher, often subject to oil sprays, water sprays, and physical vibrations, so often industrial Ethernet requires a more rugged and watertight connector on one or both ends of the

Cat-5 Category 5 cable (Cat 5) is a twisted pair cable for computer networks. Since 2001, the variant commonly in use is the Category 5e specification (Cat 5e). The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is ...

Cat-6 Category 6 cable (Cat 6) is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 must meet more stringent ...

cable, such as

M12 connector IEC metric screw sized connectors is a family of electrical connectors defined by IEC that are named according to their ISO metric screw thread, namely M5, M8 and M12. The number gives their outer screw thread diameter in millimeters as with the ...

s or M8 connectors, rather than the

8P8C A modular connector is a type of electrical connector for cords and cables of electronic devices and appliances, such as in computer networking, telecommunication equipment, and audio headsets. Modular connectors were originally developed fo ...

connectors commonly used in homes and businesses. Dietmar Röring
"M12 versus RJ45 Ethernet connection systems"
2014.

Advantages and difficulties

Programmable logic controller A programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial computer that has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, robotic devices, or any activity t ...

s (PLCs) communicate using one of several possible open or proprietary protocols, such as

, EtherCAT,

Modbus Modbus is a data communications protocol originally published by Modicon (now Schneider Electric) in 1979 for use with its programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Modbus has become a ''de facto'' standard communication protocol and is now a common ...

Sinec H1 Sinec H1 is an Industrial Ethernet communications protocol that provides the transport layer function widely used in automation and process control applications. The protocol was developed by Siemens and is used mainly for control applications ...

, Profibus,

CANopen CANopen is a communication protocol and device profile specification for embedded systems used in automation. In terms of the OSI model, CANopen implements the layers above and including the network layer. The CANopen standard consists of an addres ...

DeviceNet DeviceNet is a network protocol used in the automation industry to interconnect control devices for data exchange. It utilizes the Common Industrial Protocol over a Controller Area Network media layer and defines an application layer to cover a ran ...

FOUNDATION Fieldbus Foundation Fieldbus (styled Fieldbus) is an all-digital, serial, two-way communications system that serves as the base-level network in a plant or factory automation environment. It is an open architecture, developed and administered by FieldComm ...

. The idea to use standard Ethernet makes these systems more

interoperable Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader def ...

. Some of the advantages over other types of industrial network include: * Increased speed, up from 9.6 kbit/s with

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' ('' data terminal equipment'') suc ...

to 1 Gbit/s with

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use ...

* Ability to use ubiquitous Cat5e/ Cat6 cables * Option to use

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair Hair is a protein filament that grows ...

for increased distance * Ability to use standard

networking hardware Networking hardware, also known as network equipment or computer networking devices, are electronic devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network. Specifically, they mediate data transmission in ...

for wired and wireless communication * Ability to have more than two nodes on link, which was possible with

RS-485 RS-485, also known as TIA-485(-A) or EIA-485, is a standard defining the electrical characteristics of drivers and receivers for use in serial communications systems. Electrical signaling is balanced, and multipoint systems are supported. The s ...

but not with RS-232 * Potential to use

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

architectures as opposed to client–server ones * Better interoperability Difficulties of using industrial Ethernet include: * Migrating existing systems to a new protocol * Real-time performance may suffer for protocols using TCP * Additional complexity associated with network technology * The minimum Ethernet frame size is 64 bytes, while typical industrial communication data sizes can be closer to 1–8 bytes. This

protocol overhead In computer science, overhead is any combination of excess or indirect computation time, memory, bandwidth, or other resources that are required to perform a specific task. It is a special case of engineering overhead. Overhead can be a decidi ...

affects data transmission efficiency.

References

External links

Industrial Ethernet Advisory Group

Lammermann.eu: Ethernet as a Real-Time Technology
{{Automation protocols es:Red industrial#Soluciones con Ethernet

Application environment

Advantages and difficulties

See also

References

External links