Use of the fieldbus systems in academic setting

Computers are increasingly used for problems that require software solutions that must satisfy real-time constraints and are distributed in nature. The communication standards are developed and administrated by user organizations in which universities play an important role. In this paper, most of the existing user organizations working in the field are listed and our experience with industry is shown. Advantages of fieldbus systems and the role of our laboratory in co-operation with industry are explained. The controller area network (CAN) is a well-known bus technology in industrial communication systems. This paper shows an implementation of the CANopen protocol used by one of our industrial partners in trains and mining machines.