ABSTRACT

The evolution o f computer-based instrumentation devices and material han­ dling facilities-such as PLCs, production planing and monitoring stations, robots, etc. —has enabled new automation concepts in production engineering and manu­ facturing. For instance, the originally widely used CNC concept has been replaced by modern ones such as the C I M and FMS concepts. Here, the problem o f inter­ connection o f a large number o f programmable logic controllers, robots, and vari­ ous intelligent devices dispersed within the factory had to be solved using special communication systems to be developed. This was the main impetus for starting standardization work in the area o f industrial L A N s . Major engineering compa­ nies, both vendors o f mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment as wel l as the users, have been working for more than one decade on standardization o f fac­ tory oriented communication technology. The General Motors ' initiative to work on standardization o f a communication system for manufacturing industry was followed by Boeing, Ford, McDonnell-Douglas, General Electric, DuPont, East­ man Kodak, Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Intel, and many oth­ ers. As a result, two industrial communication standards have been worked out:

• Manufacturing automation protocol ( M A P ) and • Technical office protocol (TOP)

It was realized that the M A P implementation as a backbone bus system, based on a single broadband coaxial cable, could facilitate building integrated manufacturing systems by interconnecting o f existing "automation islands," equipped wi th thousands o f programmable controllers and robots. Fig. 2 shows an