A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE IEC 60870-5-101 STANDARD FOR A COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL THAT SUPPORTS BASIC TELECONTROL TASKS 1.

FOREWORD The IEC 60870-5 series of standards documents consists of a number of base standard sections and an open number of companion standards. Each companion standard contains a selection of provisions taken from the base standards sections. These are tailored to suit a particular application by adding further provisions that are defined within the companion standard itself. The applications covered are all related to performing tasks needed by electric power systems, although companion standards for other types of system could also be produced. The subject of this report is an international standard that provides rules for communicating between telecontrol stations. Such rules are known as a telecontrol communication protocol. Several stations, which use this protocol, may be assembled into an interconnected installation for controlling and monitoring the operational equipment of a widely distributed electric power system, from a central point. The protocol is defined with reference to a simplified version of the Basic Reference Model (ISO 7498) for system interconnection. The present report starts by giving an outline of the reference model used, then continues by describing how the particular protocol works and giving some of the reasoning behind the standard. Finally some questions, which have been asked about the standard, are answered. NOTE: The views expressed in this report are those of the author. They are intended to help the reader understand the standard described. The report does not give or imply any guarantee by the author concerning the use of the standard or its suitability for any particular installation. 2. REFERENCE MODEL The Basic Reference Model divides a protocol into seven layers. The top three layers are directly concerned with the actual Application messages being sent between stations. The bottom four layers are concerned with the method used to Transport these messages between stations. The simplified reference model used in the IEC 60870-5-101 standard (and several other protocol standards) has fewer layers, because some of the facilities supported by the full seven layer model are not required and
GBC Report 011-2 Page 1 of 9

enhanced working of the remaining facilities is desired. Hence the model is often called the Enhanced Performance Architecture (EPA) Model. Each station in an installation performs its own local application tasks, called Application Processes. For example the central (Controlling) station would drive the keyboard/display or other operator interface equipment and manage the database containing all the information about the installation, such as current values of measured variables obtained from remote outstations etc. Each outstation would have Application Processes for scanning, reading and storing its local measurements and performing local control actions etc. Communication between Application Processes in the central station and those in remote outstations is performed according to the communication protocol. The following figure shows two stations communicating using the EPA model. Each station has a stack of protocol layers providing communication services to the station Application Processes at the top and accessing the communications medium at the bottom. STATION A
APPLICATION LAYER (7) APPLICATION LAYER (7)

STATION B

LINK INTERFACE LINK INTERFACE

LINK LAYER (2) LINK LAYER (2)

PHYSICAL INTERFACE PHYSICAL INTERFACE

PHYSICAL LAYER (1) PHYSICAL LAYER (1)

GBC Report 011-2

Page 2 of 9

COMMUNICATIONS MEDIUM

In general Application data is accepted at the top of the protocol stack in one station (say station A) and passes down through the stack, acquiring in each layer any necessary extra data needed to control the working of the protocol, until it emerges in serial form at the bottom. It is then transmitted to the other station (say station B) where it enters at the bottom of the protocol stack. The data passes up this stack having the control data stripped off layer by layer until the original Application data emerges at the top and is passed to the Application Processes in station B. This is called peer to peer communication because all data originating in a particular layer is transported to the same layer in the remote station. The model is used to define a protocol in an abstract way. A real protocol may be implemented in any way at all provided that, when viewed from outside the stations, it works exactly as specified by the model. Thus the protocol standard imposes minimum constraints on the hardware and software used inside the stations. This allows stations to be chosen according to economic or other practical considerations. The layer interfaces shown in the protocol stack do not have to be present in a real station. However the Physical Interface is usually present because the Physical layer is often implemented using a separate MODEM. The Link Interface needs to be present if it is desired to implement the Application layer software and the Link layer software separately. 3. MESSAGE STRUCTURE Serial messages, as viewed outside of the stations, have a nested structure which derives from the layered structure of the protocol, see the following figure. Start S L L S C A ASDU APDU LPCI LPDU All data fields shown in the figure consist of octet strings of one or more octets. The ASDU (Application Service Data Unit) is a block of data being sent from the Application Processes in one station to the Application Processes in another station.
GBC Report 011-2 Page 3 of 9

End CS E

LPCI

According to the EPA model some APCI (Application Protocol Control Information) is in general added to the ASDU to form the APDU (Application Protocol Data Unit). However the APCI is not needed in the IEC 60870-5-101 protocol, so the APDU is equal to the ASDU. The Link layer adds its own LPCI (Link Protocol Control Information) to the APDU to form the LPDU (Link Protocol Data Unit). In addition it prepares each data octet in the LPDU to be transmitted as an Asynchronous start/stop serial character having one start bit (value=0), eight data bits (the data octet), one even parity bit and one stop bit (value=1). The LPDU is transmitted as a contiguous frame with no idle line (gaps) between the asynchronous characters. LPCI = S+L+L+S+C+A+CS+E S = Start character which has a fixed defined bit pattern. L = Length character which specifies the length in octets of the ASDU+C+A C = The Link Control character. A = The Link Address field which is one or two characters chosen to suit the installation. CS = The Check Sum character. E = End character which has a fixed defined bit pattern. The protocol specifies that, for transmission speeds up to 1200 bits/second, the Physical layer shall convert each transmitted bit directly into one of two frequencies, representing the binary one state and the binary zero state respectively. This form of modulation is called Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) and it is both symmetrical and memoryless. It is suitable for most voice frequency (v.f.) analogue channels on base band transmission line, power line carrier or radio communications media. 4. FRAME INTEGRITY The LPDU frame, as shown in the above figure, provides a very high data integrity (IEC Integrity Class I2). There must be at least four bit errors in a received frame before an undetectable frame error is possible. This corresponds to a code hamming distance of four (hd=4). The frame consists of two parts which may be called the header and the body. The header contains the S+L+L+S characters and the body contains the remaining characters. Each frame is preceded and succeeded by a period of idle line (continuous binary one state). The header specifies the length of the ASDU+C+A and hence the length of the body. Due to the parity protection, at least two bit errors in the contents of any asynchronous character are required to cause an undetectable character error.

GBC Report 011-2

Page 4 of 9

In the frame body, at least two characters with undetected errors are required to produce an undetectable Sum Check error. Thus a total of four data or parity bit errors are required to produce a received frame body with a possible undetectable error. If the start bit of any asynchronous character is erroneously received as a binary one, then the start of that character will be delayed until the next binary zero bit is received. This will delay (and corrupt) the received character and, because there are no gaps between characters, it will also delay (and corrupt) all subsequent characters in the frame. This is sometimes called a sync slip. If such a sync slip occurs in the body of a received frame, the End character will be pushed into the idle line period, which succeeds the frame. This will be detected by the receiver, with a high degree of certainty, because the pattern of bits in the End character is specially chosen to differ from idle line and shifted versions of the character itself by at least four bits. The frame header has a fixed format and length. It is separately protected with hd=4 integrity against both sync slip and data/parity bit errors. This means that the receiver can rely on the length information it provides. Hence the receiver knows exactly where to look for the End character when checking the integrity of the frame body. Because the FSK modulation in the Physical layer is symmetrical, there is an equal probability of receiving erroneous binary one bits and erroneous binary zero bits. But more importantly the modulation is memoryless, which means that it does not degrade the integrity of the Link layer frame by introducing any particular erroneous bit more than once into a received frame. It is sometimes desired to transmit messages at speeds in excess of 1200 bits/second. To do this synchronous MODEMs may be used. These have bit scramblers to ensure that the receiver clock does not lose synchronisation during prolonged periods without change of binary state in the data being sent. The scrambler introduces memory into the modulation and potentially degrades the integrity provided by the Link layer. However, it is has recently been proved that certain faster non-memoryless modulation methods may be used, without loss of integrity, due to particular properties of the Link frame. See IEC 60870-1-5 technical report when it is published. In some circumstances faster transmission is possible on directly connected data circuits using digital signal multiplexers. Speeds up to 19,200 bits/sec for asynchronous characters and faster for the same characters sent isochronously are possible. 5. THE USE OF THE LINK AND PHYSICAL LAYERS As explained above the LPDU (Link frame) contains the ASDU (Application message) whilst it is being transmitted using FSK modulation on a v.f. analogue channel between stations.
GBC Report 011-2 Page 5 of 9

The protocol is intended for use with permanent directly connected data circuits between the central station and the outstations. These may be implemented as follows:A multi-drop party line connection which is time shared between several or all outstations, using different Link addresses to identify individual outstations. This would normally be operated in a half-duplex mode on a single channel, sending to and receiving from each outstation in turn, using unbalanced (speak when you are spoken to) media access for the Link protocol.
CENTRAL STATION

OUTSTATION OUTSTATION OUTSTATION

Individual full duplex connections to some or all outstations, with a single v.f. channel for each direction of communication in each connection. The individual connections permit balanced media access for the Link protocol, enabling spontaneous sending of data in both directions.
CENTRAL STATION

OUTSTATION OUTSTATION

GBC Report 011-2

Page 6 of 9

OUTSTATION

The protocol provides Link functions for supporting balanced and unbalanced media access. However practical considerations (including higher cost) may limit the extent to which full duplex balanced connections are used. 6. PROVISIONS OF THE APPLICATION LAYER The Application layer of the protocol includes all those parts of the station Application Processes which are concerned with communicating with Application Processes in a remote station. These parts are referred to as the (protocol) User Process in the IEC 60870-5-101 standard. The standard defines two sets of provisions for the Application protocol. a) Application Functions Station Initialisation Data acquisition by polling Cyclic data transmission Acquisition of events General interrogation Clock synchronisation Command transmission Transmission of Integrated Totals Parameter loading Test procedure File transfer (for simple files) Acquisition of transmission time delay

b) Application Service Data Units (ASDU) The protocol offers an assortment of different types of ASDU suitable for the Application. However they all have the same general format as shown in the following figure. T Q C CA OA IE IO 1 T = Type Identification (1 data octet)
Page 7 of 9

TT

-------------------------

OA

IE IO n

TT

GBC Report 011-2

Q = Variable Structure Qualifier (1 data octet). Indicates the number of Information Objects in the ASDU or the number of Information Elements in a single Information Object. C = Cause of Transmission (1 or 2 data octets, fixed per installation) Causes include: periodic/cyclic, spontaneous, Request/Requested, Activation (of a Control action), etc. CA = Common Address (1 or 2 data octets, fixed per installation). Distinguishes the Station Address/Station Sector Address housing the Information Objects (IO1 to IOn). OA = Information Object Address (1, 2 or 3 data octets, fixed per installation). IE = Set of Information Elements (as defined for the type of ASDU specified in the T field). TT = Time Tag of Information Object (if specified for the type of ASDU specified in the T field). USING THE PROTOCOL The protocol is mainly concerned with standardising provisions so that different suppliers of stations can agree a common set of provisions for a particular telecontrol installation, to ensure station interoperability. The parameters associated with the Link layer interface within stations are not defined explicitly in the standard, because the standard is not concerned with standardising the structure of the software used to run the communication protocol. The standard permits the user of the telecontrol installation to specify/choose his own system strategy for using the protocol provisions in ways that solve his system problems and adhere to his economic, practical and technical constraints. For example if economic considerations dictate that some or all outstations timeshare a multi-drop party line, it is necessary for the central station to have a suitable outstation data polling process. Such a polling process would reside at the Application level. However, no detailed polling process is defined in the standard because it has no peer to peer communication of its own with the outstations. It merely controls the sequence in which the standard Link functions are used to acquire any Application data that is waiting for transfer to the central station. At the end of the standard there is a checklist to enable all parties concerned with an installation to agree exactly which protocol provisions are to be used, to ensure interoperability.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE STANDARD

GBC Report 011-2

Page 8 of 9

Q1. Why is the asynchronous FT1.2 frame format used rather than the more efficient FT2 isochronous format also defined in the base standard IEC 60870-5-1 ? A1. It is generally agreed by both suppliers and users that it is worth some loss of efficiency to be able to readily obtain industry standard hardware on which to run the Link protocol. Unfortunately the FT2 frame format requires special hardware, which is never likely to be made in large quantities and will therefore always be expensive and difficult to obtain. Q2. Why does the standard not use the ISO Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1) for defining its ASDUs ? A2. At the time the ASDUs were being defined by the IEC, the only method of encoding ASN.1-defined data units for transmission was by using the Basic Encoding Rule (BER). This is very general and flexible but is very inefficient. A typical encoded ASDU would use three to four times as many bits as are currently used. More recently the ISO has introduced a Packed Encoding Rule (PER) which has the same order of efficiency as the encoding used in the IEC 60870-5-101 standard. However the latter is now published and has already been satisfactorily implemented by several suppliers, so it is too late to change the encoding method used. Q3. The standard states that there shall be no gaps between characters in the transmitted frames. Is there any tolerance allowed ? A3. Yes. It has recently been proved that a small gap, of no more than one transmitted bit duration, is permissible without any reduction in integrity. Q4. Is it possible for a user or a supplier to specify a special ASDU of a type not listed in the standard ? A4. Yes. The use of privately defined ASDUs is allowed, provided they have the same general format as the standard ASDUs. The standard provides reserve codes for compatible private use. The use of privately defined ASDUs should be made clearly visible to all parties concerned with a particular installation. Because without such visibility the required degree of interoperability may not be obtained. Q5. Is it possible to use the IEC 60870-5-101 standard in installations where the user wishes to use standard digital data networks (which do not have permanent direct connections between stations) ? A5. This has recently become possible using a new standard called IEC 60870-5-104. This will allow the Application layer of IEC 60870-5-101 protocol to be used with such networks via an existing standard Transport interface. FOOTNOTE The author is prepared to attempt to answer any further questions readers may have about the IEC 60870-5-101 standard. Author: G Barry Cole Email: gbarrycole@supanet.com
GBC Report 011-2 Page 9 of 9

GBC Report 011-2

Page 10 of 9