Controlling industrial devices over TCP/IP by using LonWorks

This paper presents an implementation which can support LonWorks over IP networks. LonWorks is a control network technology which uses a control network protocol called LonTalk. Since LonTalk is different from IP network protocol TCP/IP, LonWorks itself cannot support IP networks automatically. Therefore, we must merge TCP/IP and LonTalk to implement LonWorks over IP networks. In this paper, the experiments used to test interoperability between TCP/IP and LonWorks are explained. The steps taken to set up experiments, such as building a LonWorks node, LonWorks network, and LonWorks over IP networks are described as well. Based on these experiments carried out to route information between LonWorks and IP networks, we have concluded that it is possible to control appliances and industrial devices over interconnected networks which use TCP/IP and LonTalk.