Implementation of a traffic interceptor for Anybus CompactCom
(2020) EITM02 20201Department of Electrical and Information Technology
- Abstract
- The aim of this project is to design and develop a traffic interceptor for the Anybus protocol. This protocol is owned by HMS Industrial networks and its use is intended to enable industrial devices to communicate with any fieldbus or industrial Ethernet network.
The traffic interceptor developed in this master thesis was introduced so the host can observe the data flow before it is translated inside the Anybus products and more specifically the CompactCom product.
It receives the signals from the communication between the Anybus and its host application, then these signals are formatted in an FPGA and processed in a microprocessor to finally be displayed using a protocol package analyzer called Wireshark. - Popular Abstract
- Modern industrial systems rely on real-time communications between machines, sensors, actuators, human control interfaces, etc. Traditionally, these devices are connected to each other using a fieldbus, an industrial communications network whose characteristics can vary depending on the requirements of the specific industrial process that is being controlled. Examples of requirements include bandwidth, latency, communication distance, fault tolerance, and many others. This has led to the existence of many different communication protocols, often sponsored by different vendors or groups of vendors, that are incompatible between them.
To add to this, the requirement for higher capacity and lower costs makes Ethernet an attractive value... (More) - Modern industrial systems rely on real-time communications between machines, sensors, actuators, human control interfaces, etc. Traditionally, these devices are connected to each other using a fieldbus, an industrial communications network whose characteristics can vary depending on the requirements of the specific industrial process that is being controlled. Examples of requirements include bandwidth, latency, communication distance, fault tolerance, and many others. This has led to the existence of many different communication protocols, often sponsored by different vendors or groups of vendors, that are incompatible between them.
To add to this, the requirement for higher capacity and lower costs makes Ethernet an attractive value proposition for this communications, since the users could leverage existing hardware and software tools for TCP/IP communication at a much lower cost than the niche industrial protocols. However, Ethernet by itself has some drawbacks when it comes to industrial environments, such as lack of time accuracy, electrical noise sensitivity and diffculties to run for a very long distance.
To bridge the gap between Ethernet and the industrial communication requirements, several Industrial Ethernet variants have been created by adding extra functionality such as real-time control and determinism. This has resulted in an increase in the amount of industrial communication standards that exist, which are mostly incompatible between them. This increases the cost of setting up an industrial plant, since all the devices need to be compatible with each other, meaning that, once a protocol has been chosen, the user will be limited to those manufactured or compatible with the ones from the same company.
In order to solve this issue, HMS created the Anybus communication protocol. The goal of this protocol is to be an intermediate bridge between networks and devices that use different protocols. To do so, the traffic from each side is "translated" to the Anybus protocol, and from this common language, it is translated back to the corresponding network protocol. This allows for great flexibility in different scenarios: for example, direct protocol converters can be used to communicate a device with an uncompatible network. Another possibility is for a company to design a device that uses the Anybus protocol, so that the customer can connect it to different networks by changing the adapter.
While the Anybus protocol provides great flexibility, it is currently a blackbox for the user. This means that the user has no way of monitoring the data that goes through the Anybus connection, so when an occasional error happens in any of the stages of the communication, or a wrong configuration is applied, it is difficult to troubleshoot and debug.
The goal of this project is to solve this problem by building an Anybus traffic interceptor that can be implemented with hardware that is already in use by HMS, allowing users to analyze the traffic through the Anybus by using standard tools such as an Ethernet card and Wireshark, an open source network auditing software widely used in the industry. The cost of implementation is greatly reduced by using existing hardware, avoiding the cost of a new electronic design and the reusability of existing FPGA modules. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9007171
- author
- MacOtela Lopez, Francisco Javier LU and Gaztelumendi Arriaga, Javier
- supervisor
-
- Erik Larsson LU
- organization
- course
- EITM02 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- report number
- LU/LTH-EIT 2020-752
- language
- English
- id
- 9007171
- date added to LUP
- 2020-03-27 16:39:57
- date last changed
- 2020-03-27 16:39:57
@misc{9007171,
abstract = {{The aim of this project is to design and develop a traffic interceptor for the Anybus protocol. This protocol is owned by HMS Industrial networks and its use is intended to enable industrial devices to communicate with any fieldbus or industrial Ethernet network.
The traffic interceptor developed in this master thesis was introduced so the host can observe the data flow before it is translated inside the Anybus products and more specifically the CompactCom product.
It receives the signals from the communication between the Anybus and its host application, then these signals are formatted in an FPGA and processed in a microprocessor to finally be displayed using a protocol package analyzer called Wireshark.}},
author = {{MacOtela Lopez, Francisco Javier and Gaztelumendi Arriaga, Javier}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Implementation of a traffic interceptor for Anybus CompactCom}},
year = {{2020}},
}