LonWorks

Introduction
LON stands for Local Operation Network and LonWorks was developed by Echelon Corporation in 1988 as a networking

platform to support control applications. Originally known as LonTalk it was accepted by ANSI as the standard ANSI/CEA-

709.1-B. Ecehelon also had their power line and twisted pair signalling systems accepted as ANSI standards. In Europe

LonWorks became the standard EN 14908 and internationally, in 2008, the following standards were issued:

 ISO/IEC 14908-1 - Communications Protocol

 ISO/IEC 14908-2 - Twisted Pair Signalling Technology

 ISO/IEC 14908-3 - Power Line Signalling Technology

 ISO/IEC 14908-4 - IP Compatibility

LonWorks is a peer-to-peer protocol and can run on twisted-pair, Ethernet or power wiring. A network configuration tool

such as LonMaker is used to configure the data exchange by binding the input of one device to an output of another

device. The Neuron chip is the silicon that contains all of the networking firmware and is made by different

manufacturers. The programming language used within the Neuron chip is Neuron C.

Structure
Neuron Chip
The whole LonWorks protocol stack (formerly LonTalk) is contained on the Neuron chip along with three CPUs, memory,

input/output circuitry, the firmware and the operating system. There are two forms of the Neuron chip:
 3120 - has a fixed amount of RAM and EEPROM depending on the manufacturer and cannot be expanded. The
ROM contains the System Image consisting of the LonTalk protocol , the operating system and the I/O libraries

 3150 - has all that the 3120 has, but in addition contains an external data and address bus to allow for

expandable RAM and EEPROM up to 64KB in total. The System Image must be stored in the first 16KB of

external memory.

As well as the System Image there is the Comm Image that has to be loaded into memory and this determines the

parameters for communication such as speed and media type. The Network Image has the logical address of the device

along with the destination device address and message type. The final image is the Application Image that contains the

custom algorithms.

The Neuron chip contains three CPUs which are:

 Media Access Processor (MAC) - sends, receives and checks the message destination address and CRC.

 Network Processor - routes packets, sets the destination address, detects duplications, performs

acknowledgements and retries message sends if necessary.

The 5-pin transceiver interface can be configured for Single-ended Manchester encoded (RS485), Differential

Manchester encoded (twisted-pair) or Special Purpose Mode (Power Line). Any number of Inputs and Outputs can be

added to the Neuron chip and will depend on the manufacturer and the application. The I/O firmware library allows the

manufacturer to configure many combinations for the I/O models.

Each Neuron chip has its own unique 48-bit Neuron ID and is used to identify specific devices in the same way that MAC

addresses are used in Ethernet. The Neuron ID cannot be changed so swapping devices becomes problematic if you use

the Neuron ID directly as a way of addressing devices. For this reason Logical Addresses are used at the Network Layer

of the LonWorks Protocol.

Communications

Control Network Protocol Frame Format

 Bit-sync - a configurable number of set bits (1s) to act as the preamble.

 Byte-sync - set to 0 and marks the end of the preamble.

 Pri - Priority used with Predictive P-Persistent CSMA. A value of 0 is used for non-priority frames, and a value of 1

is used for priority frames.

 Path - A special purpose mode transceiver can be interfaced to two physical channels or to two physical bit

encodings on the same channel. A value of 0 is used for the primary channel and a value of 1 is used for the

alternate channel.

 Delta Backlog - used to adjust the number of slots for randomising access. Receiving devices add this value to

their backlog estimate to account for transmission of this frame.

 Network Layer Datagram

o Version - Always 0

o Packet Format

 0 - Transport Packet

 1 - Session Packet

 2 - Authenticated Packet

 3 - Presentation Packet

o Address Format

 0 - Subnet Broadcast
  1 - Group

 2 - Subnet, Node or Group Acknowledgement

 3 - Neuron ID

o Length

 0 - 0 bytes

 1 - 1 byte

 2 - 3 bytes

 3 - 6 bytes

o Address - 3 to 9 bytes

o Domain - 0, 1, 3 or 6 bytes

o Packet

 CRC-16 - the CCITT standard CRC check which is X16 + X12 + X5 + 1. The polynomial is computed over the entire

packet and link layer header.

An idle period is considered to be anything over 2 bit times and marks the end of a frame.

Control Network Protocol

The LonWorks Protocol (formerly LonTalk) follows the OSI seven layer model for its structure.

 Layer 1 - Physical - EIA/TIA 485, Power Line and Free Topology (FT).

 Layer 2 - MAC - there were improvements on Ethernet's Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) algorithms

(see below). Also, Bi-phase Space Encoding (a variation of Differential Manchester Encoding is used so that

it matters not which way around the communication wires are terminated.

 Layer 3 - Network - Each Neuron chip can be assigned two logical addresses and up to 15 Group IDs. The

addressing is hierarchical, beginning at the node's 8-bit Domain ID, followed next by the 8-bit Subnet ID and then

the 8-bit Node ID. A node can be a member of a number of multicast groups, again each group address, or

Group ID represented as a single byte. There can be up to 256 multicast groups in a domain and 255 subnets,

and each one can have a 127 nodes. A domain's address can be encoded either as zero in length, as a single

byte, as three bytes, or in order to ensure uniqueness, a six bytes. This addressing regime enables simple routing

of packets across links. The routing tables have an array of 256 bits deciding whether or not a message can pass

across the router to a given subnet. Members with the same Group ID can be anywhere within the Domain and

can cross routers.

 Layer 4 - Transport - message duplication and re-transmission is handled at this layer. Messages can use

Reliable Services (requiring an acknowledgement or response) for both unicast and multicast, or Unreliable
 Services can be used. The total transaction time on the receiver end, the number of retries and the time between

retries can be configured.

 Layer 5 - Session - management of requests and responses occurs here. A message response is saved

temporarily in case a retry is required thereby saving a message having to be re-created and re-transmitted.

 Layer 6 - Presentation - data items are identified here and the semantics are created of how the data is passed

to the Application layer, the model used is a Publisher-Subscriber model.

 Layer 7 - Application - Network Variables are specific data types such as temperature in degrees Celsius plus

high and low limits. If a Network Variable Output on one device is Bound to a Network Variable Input on

another device, then a published change will be sent to each Subscriber of that value. Other features at the

Application Layer are as follows:

o Automatic Node Discovery

o Automatic discovery of network interfaces

o Automatic discovery of Network Variables

o Automatic discovery of Functional Profiles

o Node software upgrades

CSMA
CSMA has been adopted and augmented to provide more efficient ways of allowing station access to the transmission

medium.

P-Persistent CSMA

P-Persistent CSMA provides access to the medium by way of slots. If there are 10 slots then the probability (P) of

accessing the medium is 0.1. The more slots that are created the more random the medium access is and therefore the

less chance there is of a collision. On an idle network there is still an average delay of accessing the medium which is

given by number of slots / 2.

Non-Persistent CSMA
With Non-Persistent CSMA a station randomises when it accesses the medium which is useful when there is a burst of

activity and a number of devices may be responding to a single event.

Predictive P-Persistent CSMA

congested. A number of randomizing slots can be assigned to specific stations just for their use. A station with this MAC

priority privilege may use the dedicated slot and avoid all link access contention.

When a station sends a message, the number of response packets the message will generate is placed in the Layer 2

header and is known as the Link Backlog Increment, the sender must keep track of responses so it knows when to stop

retransmitting. The nodes on the link receive the packets and look at the Layer 2 header to view the increment of the link

backlog. This backlog is used to adjust the number of slots they randomise for their own link access which goes up when

there is more traffic, and goes down as traffic diminishes.

LonWorks protocol modifies the number of randomising slots based on the short term future. The protocol's MAC

algorithm for a peer-to-peer network has been shown to use link bandwidth up to 80 percent of its maximum with a

collision rate of less than 4 percent, this compares favourably with Ethernet's CSMA/CD where you can get 100%

collisions at 40% bandwidth utilisation (thereby temporarily shutting down the network). It is therefore efficient and

requires no knowledge of the number of stations on the link, and no collision detection hardware.

Network Variables

Network Variables are used to communicate between nodes and each has a direction, a type and a length. Each node will

have its own set of Network Variables that are created as part of the application programme within that node they can be

likened to 'virtual wires' that connect devices. Node links are only allowed between inputs and outputs of the same type

which are configured during the binding process. An output variable may send data to multiple input variables on the

network (multicast), or multiple output variables can send data to a single input variable or even between outputs and

inputs on the same device (Turnaround Connection).

The types of input and output variables are defined within a growing set of Standard Network Variable Types (SNVT)

called Snivets. The variable types most often correspond to physical measurements such as temperature, humidity,

pressure, levels etc. and the number type such as integer, floating point, binary etc. The master list of SNVTs can be

found at www.tsd.org/ieee1473/SNVT.pdf, a couple of common ones are listed below:

SNVT_temp - Temperature.
 SNVT Index 39

Measurement Temperature

Type Category Signed Long

Type Size 2 bytes

Valid Type Range -274.0 .. 6279.5

Type Resolution 0.1

Units Degrees Celsius

Invalid Value n/a

Raw Range 0 .. 65,535 (0 .. 0xFFFF)

Scale Factors 1, -1, -2740 S = a*10b*(R+c)

File Name n/a

Default Value n/a

SNVT_elec_kwh_l - Temperature.

SNVT Index 146

Measurement Electricity – Kilowatt-Hours

Type Category Signed Quad

Type Size 4 bytes

Valid Type Range -214,748,364.8 .. 214,748,364.6

Type Resolution 0.1

Units Kilowatt-hour
 Invalid Value 0x7FFFFFFF (214,748,364.7)

Raw Range -2,147,483,648 .. 2,147,483,646 (0x80000000 .. 0x7FFFFFFE)

Scale Factors 1, -1, 0 S = a*10b*(R+c)

File Name n/a

Default Value n/a

Each network variable on a device has a unique network variable index. Network variable indexes are assigned in order,

starting with index 0. A network variable selector is an identifier that is used to match a network variable update message

with a network variable within the receiving application. Every device manages one or two tables that are used to match a

network variable selector with a network variable index. The first table implemented by all devices is the network variable

configuration table. The second table that may be implemented by a device is the network variable alias table. The device

uses these tables to translate the network variable index on the sending device to a network variable selector.

Network variable selectors may be reused within a domain.

The network variable selector is a 14-bit identifier with a value between 0x0 and 3FFFx0. Selector values 3000x0 to

3FFFx0 are reserved for unbound network variables. Selector values 0x0 to 2FFFx0 are available for bound network

variables.

Messages

Messages systems are stored within the Network Image (for easy modification later) and the messages themselves are

delivered in a number of ways:

 UnAcked - Unacknowledged, meaning that the message is sent with no expectation of any acknowledgement

being returned.

 UnAckedR - Unacknowledged Repeat, meaning that the message is sent a number of times according to a pre-

determined schedule in order to increase the chance of devices receiving it.

 Acked - Acknowledged Service with Automatic Retries - this is the default mechanism whereby the receiving

device sends an Ack (Acknowledgement) back. If an Ack has not been received within a specified time period

then the message is resent for up to three times unless the system has been programmed differently, a Message

Delivery Failure flag is set after this point.

Although data encryption is not supported it is possible to implement authentication to check that a sender is authorised to

send a particular message. At installation, a 48-bit key is issued to the devices on a per domain basis. The following

sequence ensues when an authenticated message is sent:

1. Authenticated message is sent from the sender to the receiver

2. The receiver sends a 64-bit random number to the sender as a challenge

3. The sender transforms the challenge using the 48-bit key

4. The sender sends the challenge reply to the receiver

5. The receiver also transforms the challenge using the 48-bit key and compares the two results

6. On success the receiver sends an Acknowledgement to the sender

Messages exchanged between applications consist of a 1-byte Message Code followed by up to 227 bytes of data, unless

the message contains a network variable, in which case there will be between 1 and 31 bytes of data. The range of

message types and their codes are as follows:

Message Type Message Code (0x) Message Code (Decimal)

User Application 00 - 2F 0 - 47

Standard Application 30 - 3E 48 - 62

Foreign Frame 40 - 4E 64 - 78

Network Diagnostic 50 - 5F 80 - 95

Network Management 60 - 7F 96 - 127

Network Variable 80 - FF 128 - 255