Fieldbus Technology: User's Perspective, 1996 Process Control, Electrical & Info. Conference Proceedings

The objective of this paper is to provide a user’s perspective on fieldbus technology. The evolution of the concept is briefly described and an overview of the main hardware and software characteristics is given. Definite benefits associated with this new technology are discussed: cost reduction in wiring, installation, and check-out, improved signal accuracy and control performance and improved documentation, diagnostics and maintenance. However, the technology is new and concerns need to be addressed before entrusting it with production: interface to DCS, device powering, real time software synchronization, PLCs and chromatographs as fieldbus devices, communication loading, raw data availability, data integrity, full integration of databases, systems management are concerns described in this text that need to addressed. Finally, from a user point of view, the text demonstrates why it is preferable that the interoperable Fieldbus Foundation protocol beadopted as the standard.