and it provides the performance required to do real-time control.”

Real-time capabilities are provided by a number of protocols. Most of the popular Ethernet-compatible protocols have variants that provide more determinism than the basic connection. These techniques provide a range of speeds and capabilities. “Profinet’s real-time protocols can provide media redundancy and response times under 200 milliseconds,” says Siemens’ Jansons.

The Common Industrial Protocol is another tool that’s helpful in applications that require more speed. CIP, now managed by ODVA, was created to integrate I/O control, motion and synchronization, device configuration and data collection across multiple networks. It’s widely used to make sure that the many facets of industrial communication schemes are synchronized. “CIP comes into play when you need to insure that motion, safety and certain I/O occur on time,” Hannah said.

Though CIP brings a lot of capabilities to industrial automation companies, gaining those benefits doesn’t require a huge amount of effort. No additional hardware is needed to read CIP commands.

“Technology is built into Ethernet frames so things like CIP can be decoded,” Wotruba says. “It’s all done in software so you don’t need extra pieces of hardware.”

Decoding the many types of data that are carried on an Ethernet cable is fairly straightforward, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Organizations are creating techniques that help their users employ the right pieces, ensuring that everything works together without requiring network managers to install equipment and software that isn’t needed in their specific environments.

“We’re developing profiles that arrange data in a particular way that provides consistency and prevents errors,” Henning says. “These profiles use specific protocols to simplify the way data is handled.”

Subscribe to Automation World's RSS Feeds for Feature Articles