IEC 61784-3:2016 is available as IEC 61784-3:2016 RLV which contains the International Standard and its Redline version, showing all changes of the technical content compared to the previous edition.
IEC 61784-3:2016 series explains some common principles that can be used in the transmission of safety-relevant messages among participants within a distributed network which use fieldbus technology in accordance with the requirements of IEC 61508 series for functional safety. These principles are based on the black channel approach. They can be used in various industrial applications such as process control, manufacturing automation and machinery. This part and the IEC 61784-3-x parts specify several functional safety communication profiles based on the communication profiles and protocol layers of the fieldbus technologies in IEC 61784-1, IEC 61784-2 and the IEC 61158 series. These functional safety communication profiles use the black channel approach, as defined in IEC 61508. These functional safety communication profiles are intended for implementation in safety devices exclusively. This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition published in 2010. This edition constitutes a technical revision. This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition:
- clarifications and additional explanations for requirements, updated references;
- deletion of technical overviews of profiles (Clauses 6 to 13), and associated dedicated subclauses for terms, definitions, symbols and abbreviations;
- addition of profiles for Communication Profile Families 8, 17 and 18 (Clauses 10, 14, 15);
- clarifications of models in Annex A;
- Annex B changed from informative to normative;
- addition of a new informative Annex E describing models for explicit and implicit FSCP mechanisms;
- addition of a new informative Annex F introducing an extended model for estimation of the total residual error rate;
- updates in parts for CPF 1, CPF 2, CPF 3, CPF 8, CPF 13 (details provided in the parts);
- addition of a new part for CPF 17.