PROFINET is becoming the leading industrial Ethernet protocol in automation due to its high-speed, deterministic communications and enterprise connectivity. However, as the world’s most popular fieldbus, PROFIBUS’s importance and usage will continue for many years due to legacy investment protection. Recognizing the hybrid attribute in process plants, this reference design is integral for the migration of existing fieldbus technology into a real-time Ethernet network based on the Programmable Real-Time Unit and Industrial Communication SubSystems (PRU-ICSS) of Sitara™ AM57x processor. This design demonstrates PROFIBUS master and PROFINET IRT device on AM572x with protocol stacks simultaneously running on an ARM Cortex-A15 core while the entire PROFINET switch and PROFIBUS frame handler are executed on the two PRU-ICSS, respectively. The migration scheme is generally also suitable for other fieldbus and industrial protocols.
Features
- PROFIBUS: Cyclic PROFIBUS-DP (DPV0) and enhancements to DP (DPV1) for acyclic services supports transmission speeds of 9.6 Kbaud to 12 Mbaud
- PROFINET IRT: conformance classes A, B and C functionality with a minimum cycle time of 250 µs
- PROFIBUS master and PROFINET IRT device simultaneously supported
- Simplified protocol translation between PROFIBUS master and PROFINET IRT
- Leverages PRU-ICSS-INDUSTRIAL-SW for Sitara processors built on top of Processor-SDK-RTOS
- Tested on the TMDXIDK5728 board and includes documentation, software, demo application and hardware design files