Free Topology: The Ultimate Wired Architecture for Industrial IoT

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We’re revolutionizing field integration for Building Automation and Industrial Control

Renesas' FT 6050 Smart Transceiver system-on-chip (SoC) now natively supports LON®, LON/IP, BACnet/IP and BACnet MS/TP protocol stacks along with simple messaging protocols – uniquely enabling the protocols to communicate simultaneously over the highly reliable and widely-adopted FT channel.

The FT 6050 will modernize and simplify automation and control networks, especially in smart buildings. Its unique and powerful open systems approach allows BACnet workstations and LON network manager and integrator tools to natively field-configure, provision and monitor controllers as either LON or BACnet devices or both. This enables a flexible architecture that combines the best of both worlds, all while taking advantage of FT.

Freedom of Choice and a Best-of-Breed Architecture

The ability to have native BACnet and LON communication on the same network fundamentally changes the way building automation systems can be architected. Solutions providers can mix devices and applications from different vendors, leading to instantaneous, decentralized peer-to-peer communications for myriad IoT use cases such as office and room controls, HVAC and energy management, security and access control systems, elevator controls and space management.

Building managers and operators also benefit by having a uniform management architecture from their workstations or building management system (BMS) applications to the network of devices, thus standardizing the workflow for managing complex systems.

The FT 6050 smart transceiver SoC offers system integrators the freedom to install devices in any network topology, free from noise and installation errors, using a single installation tool that can accommodate any system, whether they are installing a BACnet or LON device. With the FT 6050, integrators can respond more easily to project specifications, spend less effort on integration and focus on delivering value-added applications and solutions.

Free Topology also eliminates expensive home run wiring, or daisy-chaining limitations, and eliminates heavy IT involvement and cyber security risks of using Ethernet while providing superior reliability and scalability.

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Bigger, Better, Faster Networks with FT Media

The performance and total cost of ownership of BACnet networks is significantly improved when running over FT compared to traditional MS/TP media:

• BACnet/FT leads to better performance, doubling the throughput compared to MS/TP.
• FT significantly reduces installation time and costs with simpler polarity-insensitive wiring that enables creation of complex networks that are less error prone, more fault tolerant and have high noise immunity.
• FT lets integrators create larger, more complex control scenarios with more devices, longer wire runs and virtually no wiring topology limitations; supports bus, star, loop or any combination of topology simplifying future expansion.
• FT enables much faster, more reliable site commissioning – with built-in electrical isolation, there is no possibility of hard-to-diagnose site issues arising from mixing of manufacturer’s differing isolation policies; automatic addressing further speeds commissioning.
• FT is an industry-wide adopted connectivity standard, and can operate over any unshielded twisted-pair wiring or Cat 5 cabling.

FT 6050 Smart Transceiver SoC

The FT 6050 Smart Transceiver SoC is a key product in our embedded IoT platform — the most comprehensive and open control networking platform for the Industrial IoT. It is also supported in both LON and BACnet configurations by Renesas' SmartServer™ IoT, an open and extensible industrial edge server that supports multiple protocols and applications, enabling the convergence of diverse systems into a single edge networking and compute platform.

New enhancements to the FT 6050 include native support for all BACnet features, as well as improvements to the memory architecture to allow for larger, higher fidelity applications, enabling creation of extensive systems.

The FT 6050 is supported by integrated open system products including:

• SmartServer IoT’s BACnet and LON router and network managers
• IzoT Net Server, an open platform software for creating and managing a network of devices
• IzoT Commissioning Tool, an easy-to-use, front-end graphical user interface (GUI) for creating a device network using drag and drop capabilities