International Electrotechnical Commission

Industrial communication networks – Profiles – Part 3: Functional safety fieldbuses – General rules and profile definitions - Edition 3.0
 N 61784-3

Annotation

This part of the IEC 61784-3 series explains some common principles that can be used in the transmission of safety-relevant messages among participants within a distributed network which use fieldbus technology in accordance with the requirements of IEC 61508 series1 for functional safety. These principles are based on the black channel approach. They can be used in various industrial applications such as process control, manufacturing automation and machinery.

This part2 and the IEC 61784-3-x parts specify several functional safety communication profiles based on the communication profiles and protocol layers of the fieldbus technologies in IEC 61784-1, IEC 61784-2 and the IEC 61158 series. These functional safety communication profiles use the black channel approach, as defined in IEC 61508. These functional safety communication profiles are intended for implementation in safety devices exclusively.

NOTE 1 Other safety-related communication systems meeting the requirements of IEC 61508 series can exist that are not included in this standard.

NOTE 2 It does not cover electrical safety and intrinsic safety aspects. Electrical safety relates to hazards such as electrical shock. Intrinsic safety relates to hazards associated with potentially explosive atmospheres.

All systems are exposed to unauthorized access at some point of their life cycle. Additional measures need to be considered in any safety-related application to protect fieldbus systems against unauthorized access. The IEC 62443 series will address many of these issues; the relationship with the IEC 62443 series is detailed in a dedicated subclause of this part.