New Node Integration for Master-Slave Fieldbus Networks

The configuration and maintenance of fieldbus networks is a difficult and error-prone task. Plug-andPlay comes to the rescue by automating node identification, integration and configuration tasks that were originally done manually. This paper proposes a Plugand-Play functionality for the time-triggered fieldbus protocol TTP/A that works during operation concurrently to real-time communication on the same bus. While Plug-and-Play is widely adopted in personal computer world, the many existing fieldbus protocol standards complicate the introduction of consistent and vendor-spanning Plug-and-Play systems. This paper introduces a seamless integration of Plug-and-Play into the existing TTP/A low-cost framework, without any modification to the original TTP/A protocol. It gets around the problem in master-slave addressing where the master doesn’t know the identification of the new nodes.