Performance evaluation of Field Device Integration (FDI) framework

Field Device Integration (FDI) is recently defined automation standard that provides a common platform to integrate and configure field devices that works on different protocols from different manufactures. The FDI standard incorporates the advantages of existing device integration technologies such as Field Device Tool (FDT) and Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL). This paper presents a performance evaluation methodology for FDI framework based on identified key performance metric (KPM). This enables KPM to be used in measuring, benchmarking, and analyzing the FDI performance. Further, we propose FDI test-bed application architecture that could be used in FDI framework performance evaluation. The methodology is illustrated using results obtained from a prototype FDI server for obtaining the various performance characteristics that could be used in optimizing the system. The results show the various performance characteristics of the FDI framework that will further aid in optimizing the system.