Safety Bus Device Protocol Layer Independence
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current industrial Ethernet protocols are not flexible enough to allow direct communication between bus nodes using different safety protocols, such as OpenSAFETY, across various industrial Ethernet networks, requiring multiple variants of bus devices and significant development and maintenance efforts, and result in increased data overhead.
Innovation Solution
Implementing the session layer and/or presentation layer of the safety protocol independently of the industrial Ethernet protocol, allowing safe data transmission without relying on the specific form of the industrial Ethernet protocol, thus enabling a single bus device to be used across different protocols with minimal modifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the session layer and presentation layer of the safety protocol are implemented independently of the industrial Ethernet protocol, then flexibility and adaptability across different protocols are improved, but device complexity increases due to the need to implement multiple protocol layers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal bus device that can operate with multiple industrial Ethernet protocols (Ethernet/IP, PROFINET, EtherCAT) by incorporating the session layer and presentation layer of the safety protocol independently of any specific industrial Ethernet protocol. This allows a single device design to serve multiple protocol environments without requiring separate specialized devices for each protocol combination.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple variants of bus devices are developed for different industrial Ethernet protocols, then protocol-specific compatibility is improved, but development and maintenance effort increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of developing separate bus device variants for each industrial Ethernet protocol, the patent creates a single universal device that incorporates protocol-independent session and presentation layers. This universal design reduces development effort by eliminating the need to create and maintain multiple specialized device variants while still achieving full protocol compatibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the protocol implementation into distinct layers: the physical and data link layers remain protocol-specific but are handled at the hardware level, while the session and presentation layers are implemented independently at the software level. This segmentation allows the same software layers to work across different industrial Ethernet protocols, reducing overall development complexity.
3Reliability
If safety protocols are transmitted encapsulated in conventional Ethernet messages, then data transmission is improved, but data overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the safety-critical session and presentation layers from the conventional Ethernet message encapsulation. By implementing these layers independently of the industrial Ethernet protocol, the system can transmit safety data more efficiently without the unnecessary overhead of protocol-specific encapsulation, while still maintaining the reliability guarantees required by safety protocols.
Data Source
AI summary
Safe bus devices use a safety protocol in order to transmit safe data encapsulated in an industrial Ethernet message via an Ethernet-based field bus. However, this restricts the safe bus device to a certain combination of safety protocol and industrial Ethernet protocol. In order to be able to use a safe bus device 12, 14, 151 more flexibly, it is provided that, to transmit the safety-oriented data, the industrial Ethernet protocol uses the session layer 5 and/or presentation layer 6 of the safety protocol, which is independent of the industrial Ethernet protocol, instead of the session layer 5 and/or presentation layer 6 which is implemented in the industrial Ethernet protocol, whereby such a bus device 12, 14, 151 becomes independent of the industrial Ethernet protocol.