Development of a IEEE 1451 Standard Compliant Smart Transducer Network with Time Synchronization Protocol

The IEEE 1451 family of standards defines how transducers can be mapped to a target network based on an object model defined independently of the network. Presently one of these standards, the IEEE 1451.2, is under a revision process and within the primary enhancements already defined, alternate physical layers are envisaged. This paper presents an original solution by implementing the network capable application processor (NCAP) in a PC and using the universal serial bus (USB) to communicate with the Transducer Independent Interface (TIM). The IEEE 1588 (PTP) protocol is used to synchronize the real-time clock of two TIMs connected to the USB hub. Besides the design implementation of the proposed Transducer Independent Modules with USB communication, an application to determine the temporal precision of the two modules obtained with the protocol is also described in detail.