Modbus
• The Modbus protocol was developed in 1979 by Modicon, incorporated, for industrial
automation systems.
• It has since become an industry standard method for the transfer of discrete/analog I/O
information and register data between industrial control and monitoring devices.
• Modbus devices communicate using a master-slave (client-server) technique in
which only one device (the master/client) can initiate transactions (called queries).
• The other devices (slaves/servers) respond by supplying the requested data to the
master, or by taking the action requested in the query. A slave is any peripheral device
(I/O transducer, valve, network drive, or other measuring device) which processes
information and sends its output to the master using Modbus.
• The transmission mode defines the framing and bit encoding of the messages to be
transmitted on the ModBus network.
o In the ASCII Transmission Mode, each byte is encoded on the serial link as
2 ASCII characters. Each ASCII character is sent separately as 1 start bit, 7 data
bits, zero or one parity bit, one or two stop bits. The message is framed by a
starting “:” ASCII byte, and ends with a “CR-LF”( carriage return-line feed
)byte sequence
o In the RTU (remote terminal unit) transmission mode, the message is
transmitted in a continuous stream. Each 8-bit byte is framed by 1 start bit, 8
data bits, zero or one parity bit, one or two stop bits. The message itself starts
after a silent period of at least 3.5-character times.
RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks)
• RPL is a Distance vector routing protocol designed for low power and lossy networks.
• To cope with the constraints of computing and memory that are common characteristics of
constrained nodes in IoT, the protocol defines two modes:
• Storing mode: All nodes contain the full routing table of the RPL domain. Every node
knows how to directly reach every other node.
• Non-storing mode: Only the border router(s) of the RPL domain contain(s) the full
routing table. All other nodes in the domain only maintain their list of parents and use
this as a list of default routes toward the border router. This abbreviated routing table
saves memory space and CPU. When communicating in non-storing mode, a node
always forwards its packets to the border router, which knows how to ultimately reach
the final destination.
• RPL is based on the concept of a directed acyclic graph (DAG).
• A DAG is a directed graph where no cycles exist. This means that from any vertex or point
in the graph, you cannot follow an edge or a line back to this same point. All of the edges are
arranged in paths oriented toward and terminating at one or more root nodes. Figure shows a
basic DAG.
• A basic RPL process involves building a destination-oriented directed acyclic graph
(DODAG). A DODAG is a DAG rooted to one destination. In RPL, this destination occurs
at a border router known as the DODAG root. Figure compares a DAG and a DODAG.
You can see that that a DAG has multiple roots, whereas the DODAG has just one
DAG and DODAG Comparison
• In a DODAG, each node maintains up to three parents that provide a path to the root.
Typically, one of these parents is the preferred parent, which means it is the preferred
next hop for upward routes toward the root.
• Upward routes in RPL are discovered and configured using DAG Information Object
(DIO) messages. Nodes listen to DIOs to handle changes in the topology that can affect
routing. The information in DIO messages determines parents and the best path to the
DODAG root.
• Nodes establish downward routes by advertising their parent set toward the DODAG root
using a Destination Advertisement Object (DAO) message. DAO messages allow
nodes to inform their parents of their presence and reachability to descendants.