Patent ID: 8670303
Filing Date: 2014-03-11
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A fault-tolerant industrial control device comprising: a host processor providing data to be communicated between the control device and an industrial control network; a network communication circuit communicating between the host processor and at least two ports on the control device using a single MAC address and connectable to different network media of the industrial control network that may lead to different switches, the communication circuit switchably connecting the host processor from a first of the ports to a second of the ports upon occurrence of a fault affecting a first of the ports without changing the MAC address; wherein both ports detect network-level faults by monitoring regular beacon messages from at least one beacon device communicating on the industrial control network with the control device; wherein the network communication circuit further periodically transmits a path check request message to the beacon device and triggers the fault if a responding path check response is not received from the beacon device in a predetermined interval.