Comunicações Industriais

Industrial Communications

Lecture 7 – Physical Layer

Luís Almeida
lda@fe.up.pt
 Last lecture

• The Modbus TCP layers for the 1st lab assignment

– ModbusAP application layer and its functions
– ModbusTCP session/transport layer and its functions
– Sequence diagrams of a client and server applications

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 This lecture

• The physical layer (PHY)

– Interconnection topology
– The physical medium
– Effects of the propagation delay in a bus
– Protocol efficiency in a bus
– Collision detection
– Energy issues

– Other aspects that will not be addressed at this point

» Information coding
» Limitations to the length of physical connections
» Maximum number of nodes
» Energy supply over the network
» Immunity to EMI
» Intrinsic safety

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 Network topology

Tree Mesh (wired)

Mesh (wireless-RF)

Bus Ring
Star

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 Network topology

Topology In favor Against

Mesh Point-to-point connections Requires routing. Complex cabling

(wired, only). (wired), difficult to maintain. Difficult
Several alternative paths. to enforce total order

Tree Point-to-point connections. Fixed routing. Potential long paths for

(star) Simultaneous communication in deep nodes in different branches. Upper
parallel branches. branches are bottlenecks.

Ring Point-to-point connections. Long path for back-to-back nodes.

Simplified cabling. Depending on protocol, the whole ring is
used as shared medium (more complex
access control)

Bus Simplified cabling. Direct Shared communication medium (more

communication (no routing) complex access control)

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 Physical medium

• Copper wiring
– Cheaper cables and interfaces (+), suffers EMI (-)

• Optical fibers
– Immune to EMI, favors safety, wide bandwidth, low attenuation (+),
expensive cables and interfaces (-)

• Wireless – Radio frequency

– Mobility, flexibility (+), very susceptible to EMI (-),
multi-path fading (-), attenuation (-), open medium (+/-)

• Wireless – Infra-red light

– Mobility, flexibility (+), line-of-sight (-), open medium(+/-)

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 Propagation delay in a bus

• Time for a bit to traverse the full length of the bus ()

“1”

Bit arrives  after

being transmitted.
Transmitter Receiver 1 ( = Lmax/Vprop) Receiver N

“1” Vprop “1”

Bus

Lmax

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 Bit length in a bus

• Number of bits in transit in the bus (b), given  and Tx_rate

“1”
“0”
“1”
“0”
“0” Tx_rate

b bits are in transit

until 1st reaches end
Transmitter Receiver 1 (b = *Tx_rate) Receiver N

“ 1 ” “ 0 ” “ 1 ” “ 0 ” “ 0 ”
Bus
Vprop
Lmax

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 Protocol efficiency in a bus

• Any message must be flushed from the bus

before the next can be transmitted
“0” m / Tx _ rate m
“1”
Max_eff = =
Message with m bits  + m / Tx _ rate m + b
“0” transmitted at Tx_rate
Last bit arrives
 +m/Tx_rate
Transmitter Receiver 1 after 1st bit was transmitted. Receiver N

“010” Vprop “010”

Bus

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 Spatial consistency at the bit level

• Required by some protocols

(b=1 => Tx_rate < 1/2) (case of CAN)

“0” Next bit must wait (>2*) for

Next bit must wait
the current bit to arrive at the
“1” (>) for current one to
end, and possible
“0” arrive at the endnode
of N to
transmission from
Tx_rate the bus
arrive here(Lmax)
plus tolerance
Bit arrives  after
Transmitter / being transmitted. Transmitter /
Transmitter Receiver 1 ( = Lmax/Vprop) Receiver N
Receiver 1 Receiver N

“1” Vprop “1”

Bus
“0” Vprop
Lmax

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 Wireless transmission

• In wireless networks the attenuation is strong

(even worse with obstacles and multi-path fading)
– transmissions from one node may not reach all nodes in the network.

R = Radius of the energy detection range (interference range)

L = Radius of the effective communication range (communication range)

RF signal
strength

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4 Node 5

R
L
2
1 3
4 5

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 Hidden nodes

• Attenuation is also responsible for a phenomenon called the hidden

node or terminal that jeopardizes transmission control based on
carrier sensing

3- Both transmissions interfere 2- Node 5 does not

1- Node 1 is
destructively at node 3 listen to node 1 and
tranmitting
starts transmitting

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4 Node 5

2
1 3
5
4

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 Exposed nodes

• Sometimes, the communication could be carried out in parallel

(channel reuse) but the carrier sense mechanisms prevent that...

2- Node 4 listens to 3- Node 5 could receive

1- Node 2 is
node 2 and does from node 4 while node
transmitting to node 1
not start transmission 2 is transmitting

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4 Node 5

2
1 3
4 5

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 Asymmetrical / unidirectional links

• Transmission power, antenna efficiency and local noise deeply

influences the communication range ➔
Differences cause unidirectional communication links

-Node 5 does not listen to node 1 RF signal

strength
-Node 1 listens to node 5

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4 Node 5

2
1 3
4 5

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 Detection of collisions

• In shared broadcast buses

– If bit length b=1, send 1 bit and listen
– If bit length b>1, it is not possible to relate the bit being transmitted
with what is sensed on the bus. In this case a jamming signal is used

• In wireless transmission it is not common to transmit and receive

at the same time (expensive, requires multiple transceivers).
Collisions can be sensed indirectly by means of acknowledging.

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 Energy consumption

• Influenced by: Transmission power, data rate, frame rate,

network traffic, error control coding, retransmissions policy,
type of medium access control and physical bit encoding.

• Very complex relationship among the above parameters. Need to

trade-off.

• Highly relevant in autonomous systems, particularly in those

expected to operate continuously for long term (wireless sensor
networks).

• Typical technique to reduce energy:

Synchronized transmissions with low duty-cycle
» See later on in the Data Link Layer

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 Energy consumption trade-offs in wireless

• Higher data rate uses more energy but transmissions take less
time (probability of errors and retransmissions also increases…)
IEEE 802.11a

For a given power,

higher bit rate
implies
higher error rate

For a given error rate,

higher bit rate
requires
D. Sicignano,
higher power Univ. Zaragoza,
Spain

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 Energy consumption trade-offs in wireless

• In a mesh-like network (WSNs), higher tx power might reduce the

number of hops, thus less energy spent in storing and forwarding
P2

P1

• Asynchronous transmissions (ET-like) reduce power on tx but

receivers may need to be awake all the time!
– Use of preambles and periodic awaking (receivers poll the medium)

• Collisions require retransmissions but avoiding them requires a

synchronization mechanism
– Precision? Extra transmissions…

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 Energy consumption in wired networks

• Some protocols use transceivers that are particularly energy

expensive (e.g. CAN).
+ +

R R

Bus line

1 2 3

• Reducing transmissions might be desirable in autonomous devices

(portable instrumentation, mobile robots) but also in general
– In some PIC18F458 based boards, overall current consumption raised from
70mA to 110mA corresponding to no CAN transmissions and constant
transmission, respectively.

• ...
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 Summary

• Network topologies comparison:

– Mesh, Tree, Ring and Bus

• Physical medium
– Copper, optical and wireless (IR & RF)

• Effects of the propagation delay in a bus

• Protocol efficiency in a bus

• Collision detection

• Energy issues

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