
Installation, Operation and Maintenance Manual
MDE 255 Rev. 0 January 2022
Foundation™ Fieldbus Overview 5
Section 5: Foundation™ Fieldbus Overview
Section 5: Foundation™ Fieldbus Overview
Foundation Fieldbus is an open networking standard which provides an open specication for both the
control application and the communication on the bus.
Foundation Fieldbus communication protocol is an industry proven international standard
(IEC 61158-2) designed for use in the process industry and also complies with the ISA-SP50
recommendation for eldbus devices.
The major benets in adopting this standard include:
• Multi-drop capability with up to 32 devices per segment;
• Extended trunk length using repeaters which increase the total bus length and the number
of devices in the network;
• Power and communications over the same shielded twisted pair network that allow to know
the physical status of XTE3000 actuator even if it is without actuator mains power;
• Distribution of the control into the eld devices reducing the amount of control equipment
in the plant.
This last item is one of the advantages of Foundation Fieldbus, which uses standards ‘Function Blocks’
and Device Descriptions to implement control strategy. Function Blocks are standardized automation
functions with dened behaviour used to represent different type of functions, such as discrete input
(DI), discrete output (DO), analog input (AI), analog output (AO), Proportional / Integral / Derivative
(PID), etc.
Furthermore, every Foundation Fieldbus device has a Resource Block and at least a Transducer Block.
Once the hardware of a Foundation Fieldbus device is congured, eldbus communication is used to
congure the transducer block parameters. The desired transducer functionality is associated with a
specic function block via a Channel.
The host system is used to link the function blocks together to create a control application that can
be downloaded to the devices in the segment.
More information about Foundation Fieldbus are in the documents:
• Foundation Fieldbus – Technical Overview
• Foundation Fieldbus – Wiring and installation 31.25 kbit/second, Voltage Mode,
Wire Medium Application Guide
Available at the website http://www.eldbus.org