Factory to office communications: applications and trends

Techniques for gathering, interpreting, and acting upon industrial controller data are described. Polled communications, unsolicited communications, and hybrid techniques are discussed. The author presents applications and comparisons of these communication techniques and projects how the techniques may evolve. Both software and hardware issues are addressed. It is concluded that eventually the standards-based networks will achieve wide acceptance due to stronger hardware support, lower price per node, and better application software.<>