PROFIBUS DP

PROFIBUS DP is a fieldbus communication protocol standardized in IEC 61158. It connects controllers or control systems to decentralized field devices such as sensors and actuators over a single bus cable, and the document states it supports factory, process, motion-control and safety-related applications. A PROFIBUS DP cable can connect up to 126 I/O devices, and its copper RS485 interface supports data rates from 9.6 kbit/s to 12 Mbit/s.

Source checked3/3 values · 2026-10-25

Specification

1 source

Transports	serial
Architecture	master slave
Encoding	binary
Standard body	IEC
Standard ref	IEC 61158

Study notes

A PROFIBUS DP cable can connect up to 126 I/O devices; each I/O device may provide hundreds of connection points.
The copper RS485 interface supports data rates from 9.6 kbit/s to 12 Mbit/s.
The document names PROFIBUS PA, PROFIdrive, HART on PROFIBUS, PROFIsafe and NAMUR NE 107 but does not give matching reference ids for them.
PROFIBUS DP is positioned between field devices and higher-level systems; PROFINET is named as the upper system bus and interface to MES/ERP levels.
Application profiles define data formats, data access methods, parameterization, and cyclic and acyclic diagnostics.

Safety

An intrinsically safe RS485 version (RS485-IS) is available for field devices that do not draw power from the bus.
Safety-related tasks can be solved with PROFIsafe, as stated in the document.