LON Technology

7 Reasons for LON

Well-established

LON is one of the leading systems for building automation. LON is used worldwide and is also used in industrial applications and for tasks outside of building automation.

Solves your task

With LON you get a reliable, secure and efficient data transmission. LON is characterized by a high packet rate, data backup, authentication and the variety of interoperable data types.

Open protocol

LON is an open protocol. When selecting components, the installer is not limited to one manufacturer, but can choose from several hundred suppliers worldwide.

Standard

LON technology is standardized worldwide as ISO / IEC 14908 – including all different transmission media.

Future-proof

The worldwide standardization of the LON protocol and the certification of interoperability guarantee you maximum investment security.

Easy to install

LON has the right transmission medium for every task. The uniformity of the protocol in all media freed from constraints in planning.

Easy to integrate

With a Neuron chip and NodeBuilder software, LON technology can be easily integrated into your device.

Guidelines

One of LonMark’s fundamental purposes is in providing direction to members and the general public—whether that’s for device creation or network integration, standardization or creating a plan for an integration specification.

Working principles of LON

The LON technology is based on the following basic insights: Technological advances enable ever smaller and at the same time more intelligent components and controls that can be used almost anywhere. Central control is no longer required. Increasingly complex requirements for control and monitoring functions must be subdivided into subobjects so that transparency and scope for variation are maintained. Distributed intelligence promotes this breakdown. Increasing cost pressure requires standardized and modular systems that can be quickly and easily built, expanded or modified, and that rely on existing infrastructures. As a result, LON networks are characterized by their functions not being centrally controlled but each distributed node having freely programmable intelligence. The decentralized control system keeps the overall system modular and flexible. Sensor and control telegrams are transmitted in topologies of any kind and with the most diverse media. Their status and command information can trigger actions at any location and at any participant within the LON network. In the field of building automation, for example, access controls, heating and lighting systems can communicate via LON. Interdependencies between the individual trades can be taken into account.

The Application Layer

The application layer defines a rich set of standard network services that use data exchanged by the lower layers. These include network configuration and diagnostic services as well as standard application-layer services. The application layer services ensure that devices created by different developers or manufacturers can interoperate with each other, and can be installed and configured using standard network tools. The network configuration and network diagnostic services are defined by the International standards.

EN 14908-5 or ANSI/CTA 709.5 – Control Networking Protocol Specification Part 5: Implementation Application Layer Guidelines

Presentation Layer

The presentation layer adds structure to the data exchanged by the lower layers by defining the encoding of message data.

LonMark has standardized this core element. All our Standard Functional Profiles – SFPT, Standard Network Variable Types – SNVT; Standard Configuration Variable Types – SCPT, and Standard Enumeration Types – ENUM are in this Standard.

EN 14908-6 or ANSI/CTA 709.6 – Control Networking Protocol Specification Part 6: Application Elements

Media Transport Layers

The physical layer defines the transmission of raw bits over a communication channel. A channel is a physical transport medium for packets. The physical layer ensures that a 1 bit sent by a source device is received as a 1 bit by all destination devices.
CNP is media independent, so multiple physical layer protocols are supported depending on the communication medium. A LONWORKS device can be connected to a variety of communications transceivers that manage the electrical interconnection to the communications medium. CNP communications transceivers are available for communication over twisted pair, link power, power line, radio frequency (RF), fiber optic, and infrared media. The specifications for each LONWORKS transceiver provide
the distance, bit rates, and topologies supported.
A LONWORKS network is composed of one or more channels. The physical form of a channel depends on the medium. For example, a twisted pair channel is a twisted pair cable; an RF channel is a specific radio frequency carrier; a power line channel is a specific band carried on a contiguous section of power wiring.
Multiple channels are connected by routers. Routers are communication devices that connect two channels and route packets between them. Routers can be installed to use one of four routing algorithms: configured router, learning router, bridge, or repeater. Configured routers and learning routers are a class of router known as an intelligent router.
A set of channels connected by bridges or repeaters is a segment. A device sees every packet from every other device on its segment. Intelligent routers can be used to isolate traffic.