PROFINET Manual

All field devices are described in their technical and functional possibilities in a GSD file (General Station Description) to be supplied by the field device manufacturer. This is XML-based and written in the language GSDML (General Station Description Markup Language). It contains all data required for engineering and data exchange by the IO-Controller. These are for example:

•Description of the individual input and output modules,

•Possibilities of using the I/O modules for the slots,

•Parameters that are necessary for the correct operation of the field devices,

•Diagnoses and their meanings supplied by a field device,

•Description of several devices of a family in one file.

An entire device family (several bus interfaces and peripheral modules) can be described in a GSD file for PROFINET IO. The manufacturer can define a series of peripheral modules for each bus interface (Device Access Point / DAP) available within the device family. The GSD file is multilingual.

The name of a GSD file follows the following scheme:

GSDML-<version>-<Manufacturer>-<Devicename>-<Date>.xml

<version>  Version of the syntax, actual is V2.33 (Oct. 2017)

<Manufacturer>  Name of manufacturer

<Devicename>  Name of the device

<Date>      composed of       <year><month><day>

Examples:

GSDML-V1.0-Phoenix Contact-ILB PN 24 DI16 DIO16-2TX-20050425.xml

GSDML-V2.2-HirschmannAutomationAndControl-RS20-1600T1T1SDAPHH-V71-20120926.xml

GSDML-V2.25-Siemens-ET200S-20140317.xml

GSDML-V2.31-wago-series750_753-20140612.xml

GSDML-V2.31-Siemens-002A-SCALANCE_X200-20141218.xml

For easy identification of a field device, a device identification has been defined for PROFINET IO. This consists of a company ID (VendorID) and a manufacturer-specific device ID (DeviceID). The VendorID is unique for each company and is assigned once by the PI Support Center. The DeviceID can be defined specifically for each manufacturer.