A recent trend in distributed systems is to interconnect the distributed elements by means of a multipoint broadcast network. Within industrial communication systems, fieldbus networks are especially intended for the interconnection of process controllers, sensors, and actuators, at the lower levels of the factory automation hierarchy. This book provides a comprehensive study on how to use networks to support industrial communication application. Four parts are roughly included in this book: 1) Fundamentals in communications and networking technologies with their developments. 2) Applications of communications and networking technologies in industry with improvements. 3) Security for communications and networking technologies in industry. 4) Trends for communications and networking technologies in the future. Fundamental theories on communications and networking are introduced in this book. A hierarchy and construction of networks for use in industry and some application instances are also presented. sSome improvement to the application with and networks are also given. Security problems in networking technologies in industry are especially addressed in detail, dealing with related methodologies. Trends for communications and networking technologies in the future areis analyzed and predicted in the last part of this book.

A recent trend in networked control systems is to interconnect the distributed elements by means of a multipoint broadcast network, instead of using the traditional point-to-point links. Within industrial communication systems, industrial networks are specially intended for the interconnection of process controllers, sensors, and actuators, at the lower levels of the factory automation hierarchy. It is known that time constraints are more stringent as we go down in the automation hierarchy. In this book, we consider the application of networked control system in its industrial environment. Some factors such as message cycle delay, the access and queuing delays, the transmission time (frame length/transmission rate), and the protocol processing time all have effects on control performance.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, configuration software has developed and evolved. It should be said that configuration software, as a kind of application software, rose with the development of personal computers. The development of configuration software is closely related to the development of the industrial control system. With the rapid development of modern industries, the production process continues to expand in scale, and its complexity is increasing. The process of industrial production is now being transformed from labour intensive, equipment intensive, and information intensive to a more knowledge intensive fashion. Configuration software as a product appeared in the early 80s, and was widely used in the late 80s. But before the mid-90s, the configuration software application was not universal. With the applications of industrial control systems widely used around the world, in the face of larger and more complex control systems, users have become gradually more aware of original host computer programming. This mode is time-consuming. The loss outweighs the gains. At the same time, MIS (management information systems) and CIMS (computer integrated manufacturing systems), and a large number of applications require an industrial site for enterprise production, management, and decision-making to provide more detailed and in-depth data in order to optimize the production and operation of enterprises in all aspects.

This book provides comprehensive research on the communication performance of a real time industrial fieldbus. Several important topics were investigated, such as how to ensure the transmission of real-time messages within a maximum bound time along the industrial fieldbus mentioned in this book. Profibus, FF, WorldFIP and CAN are all well-proved solutions for real-time communication systems, based on a simplified timed token (TT) protocol and bus scheduling. The following subjects dealing with the real-time communication performance of an industrial fieldbus were investigated and studied in this book. Features: 1) Concept and essentiality of timed-token MAC protocol with the effect of its parameter in real-time characteristics; 2) MAC mechanism in Profibus, timing analysis, optimization of acyclic bandwidth allocation, and the approaches to guarantee the real-time behaviour of the Profibus protocol; 3) Principles of acyclic data communication, and analysis of the delay performance of time-critical and time-available data in FF fieldbus data link layer token-passing service; 4) Communication models in WorldFIP network, Producer/Distributor/Consumer concept, response time analysis for sporadic traffic and investigation of the worst-case response time issues; 5) Communication mechanism in CAN fieldbus with its performance analysis and evaluation in real-time applications. The academic level of this book is relatively high and professional. It is suitable as a reference for university graduates, lecturers and researchers.

This book intends to focus on network protocol and communication in the area of information and industrial control. Various research on sub-layer protocols including Data Link Layer (DLL), Application Layer (AL) and User Layer (UL) in instrumentation network and TCP/IP, Web based protocol for industrial and informatic network and control problems involving network communication, along with the design of corresponding system are presented explicitly. The main objective of this book is to provide information on some latest research on some mainstream network protocols used in industry, including fundamental concepts and principles, latest technological developments, and as the main part, theoretical and practical research results ever accomplished.