The 8th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications
24-26 September 2015, Warsaw, Poland
Observing of Near Field Information to Analyse
a Master-Slave Fieldbus
Arne Neiser, Klaus-Peter Kirchner, Helmut Beikirch
Rostock University, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering
18055 Rostock, Germany
e-mail: arne.neiser@uni-rostock.de klaus-peter.kirchner@uni-rostock.de helmut.beikirch@uni-rostock.de
Abstract – A novel approach to analyse Quality of Service
(QoS) and Data Transfer in a flexible and robust field area
network (FAN) is presented. Based on the special fieldbus
system architecture an analysing tool using the cables near
field information was implemented. Contactless access to the
network traffic is an approach to minimize retroactive effects
of the analysing tool onto the network. Therefore, possible
sensor coupling and the influence of different methods onto
signal quality at the analyser and retroaction to the net are
shown in this paper. They were verified by simulations and
tests in a prototype environment.
Keywords – fieldbus; analysis; contactless; near field
I. I NTRODUCTION
For a special fieldbus system using unshielded parallel
wires in an industrial environment analysis tools are
provided to observe the quality of service (QoS) and
to find possible vulnerability. Concerning the system
properties the analysis tool must not change substantially
the impedance of the cable at the attachment point to
avoid system reconfigurations due to the influence of the
analysis tool itself.
As we will learn from Section II the fieldbus system
may reconfigure if transmission parameters change. Usu-
ally an analysis tool will be applied when problems occur
i.e. the fieldbus shows instable behaviour or transmission
parameters are at critical levels. The applied tool shall not
change (and mostly worse) the channel properties leading
the transmission parameters to fall below critical limits
and forcing system reconfiguration. The Ideal analysis
tool has no retroaction at all. Accordingly, the impedance
as it is seen from the cable is the main parameter of the
tools sensor in respect of retroaction.
In Section II an introduction into the system architec-
ture is given. Section III shows possible sensors and their
connection. Some calculation and simulation results are
given in Section III. Finally in Section IV an example
of a technical layout is given and measurement results
at a prototyping system of the fieldbus are represented.
Section V concludes the paper.
The initial developments of the represented work were sponsored by
the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
under the subsidy indicator 16M3199C.
978-1-4673-8361-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
II. S YSTEM A RCHITECTURE
The system considered is made of a master connected
to a number of up to 128 slaves. For data communication
dedicated channels between the master and the slaves
exist in both uplink and downlink directions built by one
or more carriers. As shown in figure 1 there exists a set of
parallel carriers. Each carrier has a net capacity of 20 bits
per cycle. Total number of parallel carriers (CImax + 1)
is a parameter of the underlying physical layer and may
be in a typical range between 64 to 2048. Four carriers
build a service channel of 80 bits width transmitted with
n-fold redundancy so that communication on the service
channel is assumed to be save even if individual carriers
are temporary or permanently malfunctioning.
The rest of the available carriers is used for dedicated
permanent data transmission between the master and
individual slaves. The system works with a communi-
cation cycle period of 1 ms. By sequencing of cycles
more slaves than the number of available carriers can
be attached paying with longer communication cycles.
Otherwise, carriers may be bundled to increase data
width paying with fewer slaves that can be attached.
The service channel is used to manage the system, i.e.
identifying connected slaves, finding and allocating usable
data carriers, replacing disturbed data carriers to sustain
transmission quality and diagnostics.
The service channel will be used as a broadcast channel
from the master to the slaves and as a multiple access
channel in uplink direction from the slaves to the master.
Carrier mapping for the communication between the
master and the slaves is done by evaluation of the carrier
quality at master and slave locations. The system may
change carrier mapping dynamically if necessary. Further,
details of operation may be found in [1, 2, 3]
Once a special analysis tool node is attached to the bus
it can be used to read the complete traffic in downlink and
uplink. This should work without any problems for the
maintenance channel. A limitation my exist for the data
channels because carriers are assigned individually for
every master-slave connection. A carrier who works for
a connection between master and a slave at one location
may not be decodable at another location where the tool
761
 Figure 1. Transmission Cycle
node is applied.
Another problem for a tool node is that if it is at-
tached to a running system it does not know the actual
assignment of the carriers because this may have been
negotiated on the control channel previously. In the field-
bus MAC-Layer this is solved by distributing the actual
system configuration periodically by the master. There
is enough bandwidth available on the service channel to
include the configuration information into the control data
stream so that the tool node has the actual configuration
after approximately 2 seconds. Thereafter the analysis tool
can watch the configuration by reading along the service
channel.
The tool node shall collect the system configuration
data and the signal quality of all modulated carriers at
the attachment point. Information is parsed and presented
in different ways (raw data, visualization).
III. S YSTEM A NALYSIS M ETHODS
The transmission cable of the system is used for data
transmission on carriers in the frequency range of 1 to 10
MHz and for power supply of the attached nodes. To keep
compatibility with legacy systems a simple unshielded 2-
wire parallel cable as shown in figure 2 and 3 is used.
Transmitters are designed as current sources because
slave nodes in uplink send simultaneously. The uplink
signal at the cable is the superposition of all slaves
outputs. Current to voltage conversion is done by the cable
762
impedance and a simple termination at the variable point
of the cable where DC for power supply is injected.
When carriers are modulated the cable is surrounded
by an electromagnetic field. By use off an appropriate
sensor it is possible to detect the magnetic- or electric field
components. Every sensor coupling extracts an amount
of energy and has some retroaction to the cable. The
objective is to get a sensor signal representing the orig-
inal signal on the cable with high quality (level, SNR,
impedance) and to minimize retroaction (local impedance
change). Figures 2 and 3 shows possible sensors: coils to
measure the magnetic field and electrodes to measure the
electric field.
First inspiration would say that measuring the magnetic
field (3) is a good choice because the sensor has low
impedance and using well adapted geometry and orienta-
tion of the coils allows you to suppress local interfering
fields whereas electrodes to measure the electric field are
associated with high impedance and sensitivity for local
noise fields.
1) Sensor coils have low source impedances
2) With appropriate geometry interfering local fields
can be suppressed
Assuming rectangular coils with length (l), inner distance
to wire (r1 ), outer distance to wire (r2 ) and number of
turns (w) gives:
dΦ l · μ0 · î r2
û = w · =w·ω· · ln (1)
dt 2π r1
 rectangular coil of 20x3.6 mm we get impedances shown
in table (II).

Table II: Inductance and Impedance of inductive sensor

Inductance[nH] Impedance[Ω]
Turns 1MHz 10MHz
1 25.3 0.16 1.6
5 634 4.0 39.8
10 2534 15.9 159.2

The sensor delivers a signal with sufficient amplitude

and low source impedance when there is a significant
signal current at the transmission line. Unfortunately the
system works without termination resistors at the ends.
So the current flow depends on the allocation of nodes
and sensor at the cable. There may be open ends or short
branches with only some slave nodes connected where
we do not find sufficient signal current flow. It may be
even zero at some points. Inductive sensors were tested,
but they give good results only at locations with real
current flow. The other choice is measuring the electric
field applying electrodes as shown in figure 3.
Figure 2. Cable with sensor coils

where ı̂ is the signal current amplitude on the cable.

A rectangular coil with l=20 mm and width=3.6 mm
applied at a distance of 2 mm to the wire centre induces
voltages as shown in table (I).

Table I: Sensor voltage û in mV for different signal

currents î

î = 1mA î = 5mA î = 10mA î = 40mA

Turns 1MHz 10MHz 1MHz 10MHz 1MHz 10MHz 1MHz 10MHz
1 0.026 0.26 0.13 1.3 0.26 2.6 1.04 10
5 0.13 1.3 0.65 6.5 1.3 13 5.2 52
10 0.26 26 1.3 13 2.6 26 10.4 104

The sensor impedance is approximately: Figure 3. Cable cross section with sensor electrodes
μ √ 
L ≈ w2 −2(l + h) + 2 h2 + l2 − k1 − k2 + k3 + k4
π Figure 4 shows the e-field of two wires with no
(2)
consideration of electrodes and different permittivities of
with:  √  isolation and air assuming a signal voltage of ±1V on the
h + h2 + l 2
k1 = h · ln wires. Applying the electrodes a field as shown in figure
l
 √  5 appears with uniform potential on the electrodes.
l + h2 + l 2 To get a first estimate for the impedance of the sensor
k2 = l · ln
l the capacitance of a coaxial structure may be used as
 
2h in figure 4. More exact results will be given by field
k3 = h · ln calculation programs based on finite elements. The results
 d
2l allow an assumption for the usability and requirements of
k3 = l · ln the sensor amplifier. Relating to the length of the sensor
d
where h = r2 − r1 and d is the wire diameter. For the the capacitance of one electrode can be approximated

763

Figure 4. Cable cross section potential lines and voltage
distribution
impedances of ZC = 3.4 kΩ at 10 MHz to ZC = 34 kΩ
at 1 MHz. Two of these capacitances in series give the
source impedance of our sensor and in series with the
input impedance of the attached amplifier the working
impedance for the cable.
The values calculated from the simple model predict the
usability of the sensor so that the impedance change at the
cable is in the acceptable limits and the source impedance
allows the use of practicable instrumentation amplifiers.
To get more exact values for the signal level and the
impedance the cable-sensor-system was calculated by a
finite elements field calculation program. For the calcula-
tion the simple coaxial model and the model equivalent to
figure 3 using rectangular clamps. Table (III) shows the
results compared to the first estimation.

Table III: Capacitance, impedance, voltage transmission

calculation

|Z| at
Design Capacitance u0 /udif f
1 MHz/10 MHz
Simple
4.65 pF 34.2kΩ/3.4kΩ 0.515
Model
Coax Model
6.72 pF 23.7kΩ/2.4kΩ 0.65
FEM
Rectangular
6.67 pF 23.9kΩ/2.4kΩ 0.60
clamp FEM

Figure 5. Cable cross section voltage distribution with
sensor electrodes
Furthermore, the gain response is measurement with a
clamp prototype at different positions of the bus cable.
The resulting gain response over the length is shown in
Fig.7. Local maxima and minima of the gain response
occur if the frequency raises above 1 MHz. Thus effects
base on the cable length and frequency of the signal, the
electromagnetic wave reflects at the ending of the cable
which leads to an interference at certain points on the
bus. With regard to that the cable is frequency selective.
This may be a problem if the clamp is attached at a local
minimum and the signal is likely to be under the receiving
level of the amplifier. One possible approach to solve this,
is to use a terminating resistor.

Figure 6. Simple model cross section

using the simple formula for a coaxial capacitor:

 1 2π · ε0 εr π · 8.85 · 10−12 As · 3 pF
C = · = = 77.5
2 r 2 2.2 m
ln ln ·Vm
r1 0.75
(3)
Using electrodes of 60 mm length we get:
C(60 mm) = 77 pF/m · 0.06 m = 4.65 pF For the fre- Figure 7. Sensor pincers
quencies of interest between 1 MHz and 10 MHz we get

764
 IV. I MPLEMENTATION AND R ESULTS
The sensor was realized as a clamp which can be
attached to the cable by use of special pincers like shown
in figure 8.

Figure 8. Sensor pincers

Table IV: Capacitance, impedance, voltage transmission

calculation and measurement

|Z| at
Design Capacitance u0 /udif f
1 MHz/10 MHz
Rectangular
6.67 pF 23.9kΩ/2.4kΩ 0.60
clamp FEM
Rectangular
6.39 pF 24.9kΩ/2.5kΩ 0.58
clamp Prototype

The sensor is connected to an instrumentation amplifier

followed by a filter to cut frequencies below 1 MHz and
above 10 MHz. Measurements were done applying typi-
cal signal voltages of ±500 mV onto the cable. Source
impedance was measured by introducing known capaci-
tors at the inputs. Table (IV) compares the measurements
with the FEM-calculation.
The next stage is a modified standard node of the field-
bus system, called the ”Listener”. The main modifications
are:
1) The node works as receiver only. The internal
modulator and transmitter are disabled.
2) There is no physical transmitter attached.
3) The node receives uplink and downlink information
whereas standard nodes receive in downlink (slaves)
or in uplink (master) only.
4) Power supply is ensured by a rechargeable battery
instead of supply from the cable for common nodes.
Figure 9 gives an overview over the ”Listener”-
node. The Box with analogue frontend, Modula-
tion/Demodulation and MAC-Layer is widely identical to
the standard nodes. The only modification is the activation
of the receiving path in both uplink and downlink. The
analogue frontend of the common nodes that is used for
Figure 9. Listener Structure
the listener too has pulse transformers at the input to avoid
excessive common mode voltages at the input amplifiers.
To avoid common mode problems the field sensor
electronics has an isolated power supply turning it into
a part of the cable system and floating with the ca-
ble potential. Additionally, the Potential isolation of the
common frontend is done by transformers. The collected
information from the bus system is forwarded to a host
(tablet, laptop, PC) for analysis and display. The listener
prototype with sensor electrodes was able to monitor a
real fieldbus prototyping system.
The prototype is furnished with different interfaces
to distribute the results. As a special feature there is a
proprietary wireless communication system with high re-
liability in industrial environment achieved by frequency
and spatial diversity. The communication system works in
at two different frequencies and a set of up to 4 antennas
at both sides. The principles of the communication system
are shown in [6]. Furthermore, standard communication
possibilities like WLAN, USB and Ethernet are available

765
 Figure 10. Listener Data Connection
to connect the listener node to evaluation and visualization
hardware (see Fig. 10).
V. C ONCLUSION
For the given fieldbus system an analysis system was
designed which gets its information without galvanic
connection from the cables near field only. It was possible
to extract a signal that was usable after filtering and
amplification for the original analogue frontends of the
fieldbus system. Modified fieldbus nodes can be used as
monitors for carrier quality, system status and data trans-
fer. The monitor data can be distributed using Ethernet
or USB and wireless solutions including a solution with
high reliability using diversity schemes.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The initial developments of the represented work were
sponsored by Federal Ministry of Education and Research
(BMBF - Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung)
under the subsidy indicator 01M3199C.
766
R EFERENCES
[1] K.-P. Kirchner, A. Fink, M. Voß, H. Beikirch Packet-Based Time-
Critical Medium Access for a Process-Oriented Deterministic Bus
System, 17th IEEE Int. Conference on Emerging Technologies,
Factory Automation, Krakow, Poland 2012.
[2] K.-P. Kirchner, C. Huschka Identifying Nodes in a Master-Slave-
Fieldbus, 7th IEEE Int. Conference on Intelligent Data Aquisition
and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications,
Berlin, Germany 2013.
[3] K.-P. Kirchner, A. Fink, M. Voß, H. Beikirch Organisation
eines hochskalierbaren Kommunikationssystems auf unterer Feld-
busebene, 3. Jahreskolloquium ”Kommunikation in der Automa-
tion” (KommA 2012), Lemgo, Germany 2012.
[4] Ch. Huschka, Erfassung von Knoten in einem Master-Slave-System,
Master Thesis University of Rostock, 2012.
[5] T. Handte, M. Breuninger, H.-T. Hagmeyer, Joachim Speidel Phys-
ical Layer of a Novel Broadband Low-Level Fieldbus with Discrete
Multitone, 9th IEEE Int. Workshop on Factory Communication
Systems, Lemgo, Germany 2012.
[6] Andreas Fink, Helmut Beikirch, Combining of redundant signal
strength readings for an improved RF localization in multipath
indoor environments, 15th International Conference on Information
Fusion, Singapore 2012.