TECHNICAL ARTICLE HART COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL Increased data security and manipulation protection with HART-capable field devices Bernd Schäfer, Product Manager OPC/SCADA/HMI Alexandre Terentiev, DCS Expert – TÜV Functional Safety Engineer #3956/11, SIS at HIMA The digitization of field devices offers huge potential for plant operators to reduce operating costs and increase productivity. Highway Addressable Remote Transducer (HART) based field devices, however, carry significant risks of tampering and their configuration is comparatively error prone. By channeling communication via a SIL 3 safety controller, plant operators can now use the data from such field devices for diagnostic and process optimization purposes without safety or security risks.

With over 40 million field devices installed and support from leading instrument suppliers, the HART communication protocol is today the most widely used digital communication technology in the process industry. Although the HART signal has so far been used predominantly for parameterization, with the appropriate tools it can enable continuous device monitoring and diagnostics as well as multivariable process information. Up to now, it has been difficult or even impossible to obtain truly useful data in safety-related applications. The problem: Although many field devices are now equipped with...

HIMax-HART data tunneling Q-lf X-HART-Lib Vl.0,2 •if' 1, Basic components Basic data types EH X-HART_config-typeH El X -HART_confi g -type -o Ol X -H ARTJn te rface -paylo ad IE X -H ARTJn te rface -type 4 E X -H ARTJn te rface -type -o __Help Document (English) L>«r 2, Universal components 0- If' Universal commands X-HART_CMDO X-HART_CMD1 X-HART_CMD2 X-HART_CMD3 X-HART_CMD6 X-HART_CMD 13 X-HARTjCMDl-t X-HART_CMD15 X+IART_CMD 18 X-HART_CMD38 _ X-HART_CMD48 0- If Universal data types 0-lf- Ascn - a X-HART_ASCII_1 O X-HART_ASCII_3 - H X-HART_ASCII_4 0 X-HART_ASCII_5 - a X-HART_ASCII_7 a X-HART_ASCII_8...

Increased protection against manipulation The security features of the safety controller make it possible to achieve a security concept in accordance with IEC 62443 for HART device access. These features include separate communication pathways in the system for secure and non-secure data as well as clearly defined communication ports. They also contain an integral HART filter in SIL 3 quality, which “listens” to the data traffic and can be controlled to only allow read access to the field devices, or it can block all write commands. This combination of complete flexibility and security features...

TECHNICAL ARTICLE HART COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL For further information please contact: HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH E-mail: [email protected] Images © HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH The content provided in this document is intended solely for general information purposes, and is provided with the understanding that the authors and publishers are not herein engaged in rendering engineering or other professional advice or services. Given the complexity of circumstances of each specific case and the site-specific circumstances unique to each project any use of information contained in this document...