Anybus X-gateway™ - Technical Overview

No programming required - as close to plug and play as you can get!

The Anybus X-gateways have been designed for use in harsh industrial environments featuring standard DIN rail mounting, IP20 rating and 24 Volt DC power supply and hazardous location classifiactions such as ATEX and UL1604. The X-gateways are intelligent stand alone devices supporting fanless operation and industrial operating temperature range.

The Network >> Network Gateway
The X-gateways are ideal for connecting between different PLC brands and the networks they support. This is often the case with factory or field installations and upgrades, where part of the installation maybe "Siemens and Profibus based" (for example) and new equiptement, in this case lets say "Allen Bradley with an EtherNet/IP network" will be introduced and needs to be linked together.

The of the design of the X-gateways is based upon two embedded Anybus communication modules and one additional Gateway processor. Thanks to fact that Anybus modules supports an unrivaled 19 different networks, means that more than 180 X-gateway combinations are available.

There is no programming involved. You simply choose the gateway version that supports the two networks that you want to bridge. For each of all possible network combinations, there is one separate Gateway. This gives you a flexible and versatile solution that is based on proven Anybus technology.

I/O data transfer
The X-gateway range primarily focuses on the transfer of cyclic I/O data between two networks. This can either be a Slave><Slave combination or Master><Slave combination. During the set-up of the Gateway, the user simply selects the amount of I/O to be transferred between Network 1 and Network 2. Since all Industrial Networks supports a different amount of I/O data, the network with the least amount of I/O data determines how much data can be transferred in each case. Average response time tested in the field is between
10-15 ms between networks. An example of which network combination should be chosen is shown below:

Choosing the right X-gateway combination

 

Slave/Master Combination In this example, where there is only 1 PLC (Master) in the installation, the X-gateway would consist of a Slave/Master combination. The Modicon PLC is a master and the Modbus Plus interface of the X-gateway is a Slave. On the DeviceNet side the X-gateway would contain a DeviceNet Scanner/Master interface to which other slave devices could then be added.

Slave/Slave Combination In this example, there are 2 PLC(Masters) in the installation, the X-gateway would consist of a Slave/Slave combination to simply link to the 2 PLC systems/network together. The Siemens PLC is a master and the Profibus interface of the X-gateway is a Slave. On the EtherNet/IP side the X-gateway would contain a EtherNet/IP Adapter/Slave interface as the Allen Bradley PLC is also a Master.

 

Web based features adds extra functionality for Ethernet versions

The X-gateway family has support for the Industrial Ethernet protocols Modbus-TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet and EtherCAT. All versions with the exception of EtherCAT have additional IT-functions included. The Ethernet interface of the X-gateway consists of an embedded Ethernet 10/100 Mbit/s interface with IT-functionality such as a Web-server, SSI-scripts, Flash file system, FTP-server, e-mail client and Telnet. It is possible to build web pages which display and control a factory floor process with data from the other connected network. With the free software "Anybus-IP Config Tool" you can simply set up or change the Ethernet configuration on any Anybus product with an Ethernet 10/100 Mbit interface.

X-gateway webserver provides useful status & diagnostic information