Device developers may require assistance in implementing Foundation technology in their instrumentation product line. That is why the Fieldbus Foundation established a complete developer training curriculum. Supplier personnel can get on the "Fast Track to Foundation" by attending one of these informative courses. 

Download the registration form below

 Training Registration Form

Download our complete training brochure below

 Training Brochure

(1-day class)

The vendor-neutral "Introduction to Foundation Fieldbus course has been designed for developers, end users, marketing professionals, applications engineers, system integrators and others interested in obtaining a fundamental knowledge of Foundation technology.

Students will become familiar with the basic concepts and new terminology related to the Foundation integrated architecture. The technology introduces new terminology that control personnel must be confident with if they intend to be successful. Students will understand the key strategies for wiring and installation of a fieldbus network. Special emphasis will be made on such design issues as power requirements, device types and topologies. DesignMATE, a software tool for modelling physical layer implementations, will be introduced.

A basic introduction of communications will help students understand appropriate device placement and expected bandwidth utilization. This knowledge will aid students in determining the appropriate control strategies, loop times, and device types to be implemented on individual segments.

Finally, the "Introduction to Foundation Fieldbus" course covers an overview of function blocks and the applications that characterize a Foundation device. Students learn the differences between the block types as well as key components of the standard function blocks defined by the Fieldbus Foundation. Other concepts reviewed include mode and status, linkages, alarming, field diagnostics and scheduling. The course will discuss the importance of the Device Description (DD) and capabilities file (CFF) that accompanies every registered Foundation device.

Background and Prerequisites

The "Introduction to Foundation Fieldbus" course assumes little or no prior knowledge of Foundation technology, but students should be familiar with process control. Students should already be acquainted with existing 4-20mA technology found in present day installations.

Agenda

Background

Foundation Fundamentals

• Overview
• Terminology
• Benefits

Wiring and Installation

• Comparison to 4-20 mA
• Maximum Devices/Lengths
• Segment Components
• Segment Layouts
• Segment Requirements
• Recommendations

Communications

• Foundation Device Types
• Device Addressing
• Device Data Storage
• Basic Device Communications

Function Blocks & Device Description (DD) Technology

• Block Fundamentals
• Standard Flexible Function Blocks
• Mode and Status
• Trending
• Alarming
• Scheduling
• Device Descriptions
• Capability Files

Demonstrations

• Demonstration of the technology using registered devices in a simulated process

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"Advanced Principles of Foundation Fieldbus" 

(3-day class)  **Please be sure to take the self assessment quiz before registering for this course** 

The vendor-neutral "Advanced Principles of Foundation Fieldbus" is designed for manufacturers and developers of Foundation hardware and software. The course is best suited for development engineers, test engineers, and all who wish to understand the detailed inner workings of a Foundation device.

The "Advanced Principles of Foundation Fieldbus" course covers major tools used by Foundation device developers. Students will work with the bus monitor to understand its basic use and learn how to apply this tool in interactive exercises demonstrating fieldbus communications and the use of filters for network troubleshooting.

The course covers H1 and High Speed Ethernet (HSE) communications between fieldbus devices. For H1 communication, emphasis is made on synchronous and asynchronous communication and the configuration and responsibility of the Link Active Scheduler (LAS). Students will examine the detailed messaging described in the System Management Specification for address assignment, tag assignment, and time distribution. The HSE communication protocol is explored in detail to understand the implementation of linking devices and HSE field devices.

Students will study the details of the object dictionary for H1 and HSE devices. This is especially important to the device developer, as the object dictionary is used to describe all the parameters and objects accessible over the fieldbus network. Students will study the layout of the object dictionary and examine an actual object dictionary in registered devices.

The "Advanced Principles of Foundation Fieldbus" course covers the requirements for building a function block application. This includes mode and status generation and propagation, resource and alert state machines, cascade handshake, and vendor-specific extensions. The course examines Device Description (DD) technology. Students will look at how the connection is made between the DD binary file and the object dictionary.

Lastly, students will learn how to effectively navigate the Foundation specifications in order to find information relevant to particular development tasks.

Throughout the course, live demonstrations of an interoperable fieldbus using registered products will be configured and analyzed using both dialog tools and bus monitors. Students will also reference the FOUNDATION fieldbus specifications in exercises designed to improve familiarity with the documents and the search capabilities built into the specifications package.

Background and Prerequisites

The "Introduction to Foundation Fieldbus" course is a prerequisite for this class. Students should be familiar with the basic terminology of Foundation technology, and have a general understanding of its communications protocol, function block execution, linkages and DDs. It is highly advisable that anyone planning on not attending the "Introduction to FOUNDATION Fieldbus" should first take the following self assessment quiz.

This quiz is composed of 12 multiple choice questions. All material used to create these questions is covered in
the Introduction to Foundation Fieldbus course, and is built upon in the Advanced Principles of Foundation
Fieldbus course. If you have difficulty answering any of these questions correctly, then you should consider
attending the Introduction to Foundation Fieldbus workshop prior to attending the Advanced Principles of
Foundation Fieldbus workshop. 

 Self Assessment Quiz

Agenda

H1 Data Link Layer

• Device Types
• Bus Arbitration
• Device Initialization
• Synchronous/Asynchronous Messaging
• Time Management
• Link Active Scheduler Specific Function

H1 Bus Monitor

• Capturing
• Filtering

H1 System Management

• System Management States
• Device Address Assignment
• Physical Device Tag Assignment
• Tag Location Service
• Application Clock Synchronization
• Function Block Scheduling

High Speed Ethernet

• Protocols
• FDA Agent
• Messaging
• Sessions
• Time Synchronization
• Redundancy

Foundation Message Specification

• Virtual Field Device
• Object Dictionary
• Communication Objects
• Communication Services

Object Dictionary

• Structure and Layout
• Function Block Object Dictionary

Function Block Application Process (FBAP)

• Fundamentals
• Status - Calculation and Propagation
• Cascade Initialization
• Mode - Calculation
• Write Checking
• Resource State Machine
• Alert State Machine

Device Registration Process

• Q&A on Device Registration

Final Questions and Open Demonstrations

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