Patent ID: 6973029

Claim:
A redundant serial bus having n>1 parallel bus lines for redundant networking of bus subscribers each having a single bus communications interface, comprising: a redundancy means which can be connected upstream, having n interfaces for connection to all of said n parallel bus lines and one interface for connection to the single bus communications interface of at least one bus subscriber, said redundancy means which can be connected upstream having a receiving end comprising an input stage at least for each of said bus lines, an evaluation stage and an output stage for all the bus lines, the evaluation stage has means for always simultaneously evaluating a data stream on each of said n parallel bus lines, said evaluation based on the content of said data stream other than a predefined error detection character included in said data stream and is other than the presence or absence of data for a period of time, for using said evaluation to select one of said n parallel bus lines as the receiving line for said at least one bus subscriber connected to said redundancy means, and said redundancy means which can be connected upstream having a transmitting end comprising a driver for each of said n parallel bus lines.