IEEE P1451.3 A STANDARD FOR NETWORKED TRANSDUCERS

Abstract

IEEE P1451.3 is an attempt to define a standard that will allow a transducer manufacturer to build transducers that have a wide range of price and performance but which are all inter-operable within a system. The standard will allow for simple devices with relatively low data sampling rates and moderate time correlation requirements to be designed and built. At the other end of the spectrum will be devices that have bandwidth requirements to several hundred kilohertz and time correlation requirements in the range of nanoseconds. It is expected that devices from either end of the spectrum will be able to peacefully coexist in the same system. In the physical realm a single transmission line will be used to supply power to the transducers and to provide the communications between the bus controller and the transducers. A bus is expected to have one bus controller and many transducers. A Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP) contains the controller for the bus and the interface to the broader network, such as NexGenBus, that may support many other nodes, NCAPs and transducer buses. A bus controller will only reside in an NCAP if the transducer bus exists within a hierarchy of networks; it may reside in a host computer or other device. This paper discusses the approach being taken and gives the status of the standard.