Real-Time Performance of Industrial Ethernet in Field Devices

Field devices must continuously perform their tasks on-time under a myriad of manufacturing conditions. These conditions affect device up-time and maintenance actions that impact the factory’s bottom line. Everyone is familiar with how temperature, humidity, vibration, and EMC can affect a field device. But there is one condition that has received little attention to date: network traffic loading. Field devices must continue to operate flawlessly in the presence of a wide range of network traffic conditions. Yet little testing is done to ensure devices will be able to operate under varying network traffic loads. As Industrial Ethernet gains acceptance, network loading will invariably increase over time further impacting device performance. This white paper shows how network traffic influences field device behavior and how to measure its performance.