LonWorks Technology OverviewThe solution for control networks.Today's networks range in size from two devices to 32,000, and are used in everything from supermarkets to petroleum plants, aircraft to railway cars, fusion lasers to slot machines, and single-family homes to skyscrapers. Most industries are moving away from proprietary control schemes and centralized systems. Manufacturers are using open, off-the-shelf chips, operating systems, and parts to build products that offer improved reliability and flexibility, lower system costs, and higher performance. Our LonWorks technology is accelerating this trend by providing interoperability, robust technology, faster development, and scale economies. The LonWorks 2.0 platform shares most of the technical underpinnings of the original LonWorks platform. Most importantly, every LonWorks device and network — whether it was developed and deployed 20 years ago on our first-generation technology, or today on LonWorks 2.0 — is compatible with each other. This means you can add new LonWorks 2.0 based devices to existing LonWorks control networks, as well as add those LonWorks products you already have in inventory to new LonWorks 2.0 based networks. The LonWorks ProtocolDevices in a LonWorks network communicate through the LonWorks protocol. In January 2009, the LonWorks protocol was ratified as a global standard for building controls. It is formally known as ISO/IEC 14908.1 The protocol is also recognized as a standard by a number of national and international (more regionalized than ISO/IEC). The protocol provides a set of services that lets a device's application program send and receive messages to and from other network devices — without needing to know the network topology or the other devices' names, addresses, or functions. The LonWorks protocol can optionally provide end-to-end acknowledgement of messages, authentication of messages, and priority delivery to provide bounded transaction times. Support for network management services lets remote network management tools interact with devices over the network, so they can:
The LonWorks protocol, and thus LonWorks networks, can be implemented over any medium, including power line, twisted pair, radio frequency (RF), infrared (IR), coaxial cable, and fiber optics.  P2P Architecture Means Greater ReliabilityWhile there are many ways to build control networks, a flat, peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture is the best method. In P2P, no single master on the network determines if a message from one device should be sent to another, nor determines in what order messages should be sent. Instead, control devices are free to communicate directly with each other; this reduces bottlenecks and prevents the systemwide failures that can occur when the master fails. As a result, P2P-based control networks offer high reliability and high performance. What's the LonWorks Platform?LonWorks is the name of our control networking technology platform and not just a protocol or physical layer for communications (such as Zigbee). The underlying communications platform, twisted pair signaling technology, power line signaling technology, and IP tunneling method constitute a global standard: ISO/IEC 14908. LonWorks technology is called a platform because it's comprised of all the necessary elements to design, install, and manage control, sensing, and monitoring solutions:
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