Patent ID: 9166922
Filing Date: 2015-10-20
Classification: H04B,H04L

Abstract:
1. A communication device for an industrial communication network operable in a redundant manner, comprising: at least one first transmitting and receiving unit and at least one second transmitting and receiving unit, each of the at least one first and second transmitting and receiving units having an interface for a network connection of the industrial communication network, and having an identical network address and an identical device identifier; a signal processing unit connected to the at least one first and second transmitting and receiving units for seamlessly transmitting data inside the industrial communication network, the signal processing unit having a multiplexer unit for forwarding data packets to be transmitted to the at least one first and second transmitting units in a parallel manner and a redundancy handling unit for processing data packets received by the at least one first and second receiving units, and the redundancy handling unit comprising a filter unit configured to detect received redundant data packets, at least one of the at least one first and second transmitting and receiving units being configured to implement seamless and non-seamless data transmission inside the industrial communication network and being selectively changeable over to a seamless or non-seamless transmission mode; an evaluation unit connected to the at least one of the at least one first and second transmitting and receiving units and being configured to detect data packets to be transmitted in a seamless or non-seamless manner inside the industrial communication network, a data packet to be transmitted in the seamless or non-seamless manner having an indentification for a respective transmission mode at least in a predetermined data field, the redundancy handling unit and the filter unit being deactivated when data packet to be transmitted in the seamless manner is detected; and a memory unit assigned to at least one of the at least one first and second transmitting and receiving unit, and configured to buffer at least one data packet to be transmitted in a manner during a predefined period of the time in the seamless transmission mode; wherein data packets to be transmitted in the seamless manner are assigned a higher priority than a data packets to be transmitted in the non-seamless manner.