IEEE 1451 with IEEE 1275: Synergy for sensing and control

IEEE 1451 is a family of related low-level standards covering the use of networked sensors and actuators. These techniques improve interoperability by enabling simple transducers to be upgraded to intelligent status. IEEE 1451 utilizes interface protocols from hardwired and wireless communication practices. IEEE 1275 describes a computer network initialization and testing process. This standard employs a byte-coded virtual machine to operate independent of CPU, software, or network configuration. It contains its own embedded programming language. The author describes how these complimentary standards may be utilized to create novel plug-and-play, hot-swap, self-configuring, pre-calibrated, multi-drop networks, for closed-loop, intrinsically-safe medical, scientific and robotic applications.