One of the main reasons for the emergence of field area networks in the first place was an evolutionary
need to replace point-to-point wiring connections with a single bus, thus paving the road for the
emergence of distributed systems and, subsequently, networked embedded systems with the infusion of
intelligence into the field devices. A detailed description of the co-evolution of field area networks and
plant automation concepts is provided in Chapter l3. A typical network architecture in industrial plant
automation is shown in Figure 1.1.