wilamowski-b-m-irwin-j-d-industrial-communication-systems-2011

15
Virtual Automation
Networks
Peter Neumann
Institute for Automation
and Communication
Ralf Messerschmidt
Institute for Automation
and Communication
15.1 Introduction..................................................................................... 15-1
15.2 Virtual Automation Network: Basics...........................................15-3
Domains. •. Components. •. VAN System Architecture
15.3 Name-Based Addressing and Routing, Runtime Tunnel
Establishment................................................................................... 15-7
15.4 Maintenance of the Runtime Tunnel Based
on Quality-of-Service Monitoring and Provider Switching.....15-9
15.5 VAN Telecontrol Profile............................................................... 15-11
Abbreviations............................................................................................. 15-13
References.................................................................................................. 15-14
15.1 Introduction
Various tendencies influence the development of industrial communications:
• Industrial automation projects become more complex
• The offered communication technologies become more comprehensive
• Stronger integration of enterprise (business) and plant automation
• Striving for non-interrupted engineering and tool chains
Future scenarios of distributed automation lead to desired mechanisms for geographically distributed
automation functions due to various reasons:
• Centralized supervisory and control of (many) decentralized (small) technological plants
• Remote control, commissioning, parameterization, and maintenance of distributed automation
systems
• Inclusion of remote experts or external machine-readable knowledge for the plant operation and
maintenance
Since the infrastructure for the office automation as well as for the factory and process automation
are merging, all the advantages but also drawbacks of Ethernet-TCP/IP have to be taken under consideration.
The communication infrastructure is becoming more and more heterogeneous. Thus, this can be
characterized by the expression “heterogeneous networking.” The end-to-end communication between
geographically distributed automation functions, performed in devices with large distances between
them, is becoming increasingly important. The data has to pass through a chain of very different types
of communication technologies (circuit or packet switched, wired or wireless, provider oriented or provider
less, public or private, etc.). The growing complexity of the necessary industrial communications
led in the past to different technical approaches. In the fieldbus technology, different fieldbus networks
15-1
© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC