A Review of the Fieldbuses
Abstract
The fieldbuses take more a major place in automation systems, in embedded systems, in building automation. This conference is a state of the art on fieldbus. It is analyzed starting from the fieldbus history. The history explains the reasons of the fieldbuses proliferation, because different points of view have been considered and then developped by the different proposers, ten or fifteen years ago. Therefore more than 30 different names of products or standards appear in conferences, in specialized magazins or in exhibits. Starting from this history, the paper presents a synthesis on the different fieldbuses. It describes the requirements for fieldbus, their main traffic characteristics, the typical time constraints to be met, the most current profiles defined in major products and standards. An analysis of services and protocols is given. Some perspectives as well for research as for development are underlined, with regard to the application architectures, their modeling and validation.