Summary

Congratulations! You have completed this chapter. You should now understand what is meant by an industrial network and be able to explain the basic physical topologies available (point-to-point, bus, star, and ring). You also learned about network media and should now understand wired and wireless network media. This chapter also explained various cellular communication generations (1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G). You should also have an understanding of common network connectors and other components used in industrial networks. Most importantly, we covered the network protocol and discussed some of the commonly used protocols in the industry (Foundation Fieldbus, PROFIBUS, Modbus, HART, and PROFINET).

In the next chapter, we will cover another important topic you cannot afford to miss, smart factories (Industry 4.0).