Integration of fieldbus into DCS

Control systems have evolved from local control to centralized control to today's distributed control. With the emergence of fieldbus, new control strategies and architectures using this new concept will revolutionize instrumentation and control systems. The paper discusses the advantages of fieldbus, describe its benefits and impacts on distributed control systems (DCSs) and predict the next architectural transformation of control systems based on the current driving force. Also, some of the technical challenges and three approaches of integrating fieldbus into existing DCSs are presented.