DEVICE FOR CONTROLLING AND/OR MONITORING AND DATA RETRIEVAL FROM LOCAL FUNCTIONAL UNITS ALONG A COMMUNICATION NETWORK

摘要

The device has a superordinate control system (30) for exchanging information with the decentralized functional units by data telegrams. The superordinate control system is coupled to a data transport network by a network access point (2 to 16). The decentralized functional units are combined into subgroups (A to E) each having a subnetwork (NA to NE). The subnetwork of each subgroup is coupled to the data transport network at each of the two ends by a communication unit (18,20,22,24,26,28) and by a network access point. An independent claim is also included for a method for controlling and monitoring decentralized functional units arranged along a communication network.