The HART Communications Protocol (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer Protocol) is

an early implementation of Fieldbus, a digital industrial automation protocol. Its most notable
advantage is that it can communicate over legacy 4-20 mA analog instrumentation wiring,
sharing the pair of wires used by the older system. According to Emerson,[1] due to the huge
installed base of 4-20 mA systems throughout the world, the HART Protocol is one of the most
popular industrial protocols today. HART protocol made a good transition protocol for users who
were comfortable using the legacy 4-20 mA signals, but wanted to implement a "smart" protocol.
Industries seem to be using Profibus DP/PA and Foundation fieldbus (also by Rosemount) more
as users become familiar with later technology and look to take advantage of the enhanced
diagnostics they can provide.
The protocol was developed by Rosemount Inc., built off the Bell 202 early communications
standard, in the mid-1980s as proprietary digital communication protocol for their smart field
instruments. Soon it evolved into HART. In 1986, it was made an open protocol. Since then, the
capabilities of the protocol have been enhanced by successive revisions to the specification.

Contents
[hide]

1 Modes

2 Packet structure
o 2.1 Preamble
o 2.2 Start delimiter
o 2.3 Address
o 2.4 Command
o 2.5 Number of data bytes
o 2.6 Status
o 2.7 Data
o 2.8 Checksum

3 References

4 External links

Modes [edit]
There are two main operational modes of HART instruments: analog/digital mode, and multidrop
mode.
In point-to-point mode (analog/digital) the digital signals are overlaid on the 4-20 mA loop
current. Both the 4-20 mA current and the digital signal are valid output values from the
instrument. The polling address of the instrument is set to "0". Only one instrument can be put on
each instrument cable signal pair. One signal, generally specified by the user, is specified to be
the 4-20 mA signal. Other signals are sent digitally on top of the 4-20 mA signal. For example,
pressure can be sent as 4-20 mA, representing a range of pressures, and temperature can be sent
digitally over the same wires.
In multidrop mode (digital) only the digital signals are used. The analog loop current is fixed at
4 mA. In multidrop mode it is possible to have more than one instruments on one signal cable.
HART revisions 3 through 5 allowed polling addresses of the instruments to be in the range 1-15.
HART 6 and later allowed address up to 63. Each instrument needs to have a unique address.

Packet structure [edit]

The HART Packet has the following structure
Field Name
Preamble
Start Byte
Address
Command
Number of data
bytes
Status
Data
Checksum

Length (Bytes)
Purpose
5-20
Synchronization and Carrier Detect
1
Specifies Master Number
Specifies slave, Specifies Master and Indicates Burst
1-5
Mode
1
Numerical Value for the command to be executed
1
Master (0) Slave
(2)
0-253
1

Indicates the size of the Data Field

Execution and Health Reply
Data associated with the command
XOR of all bytes from Start Byte to Last byte of Data

Preamble [edit]
Currently all the newer devices implement 5 byte preamble, since anything greater reduces the
communication speed. However, masters are responsible for backwards support. Master

communication to a new device starts with the maximum preamble length (20 bytes) and is later
reduced once the preamble size for the current device is determined.

Start delimiter [edit]

This byte contains the Master number and specifies the communication packet is starting.

Address [edit]
Specifies the destination address as implemented in one of the HART schemes. The original
addressing scheme used only 4 bits to specify the device address, which limited the number of
devices to 16 including the master.
The newer scheme utilizes 38 bits to specify the device address. This address is requested from
the device using either Command 0, or Command 11.

Command [edit]
This is a 1 byte numerical value representing which command is to be executed. Command 0 and
Command 11 are used to request the device number.

Number of data bytes [edit]

Specifies the number of communication data bytes to follow.

Status [edit]
The status field is absent for the master and is two bytes for the slave. This field is used by the
slave to inform the master whether it completed the task and what its current health status is.

Data [edit]
Data contained in this field depends on the command to be executed.

Checksum [edit]
Checksum is composed of an XOR of all the bytes starting from the start byte and ending with
the last byte of the data field, including those bytes.
HART
Protocol Information

Type of
Network

Physical
Media

Device Bus (Process Automation)

Legacy 4-20 mA analog

instrumentation wiring or 2.4 GHz
Wireless

Network

One-on-One, Multidrop, Wireless

Topology

Mesh

Maximum
Devices

15 in multidrop

Maximum

Depends on Physical Layer

Speed

employed

Device
Addressing
Governing
Body
Website

Hardware/Software

HART Communication Foundation

www.hartcomm.org