The principal objective of this standard is to specify the characteristics of conceptual
application layer services suitable for time-critical communications, and thus supplement the
OSI Basic Reference Model in guiding the development of application layer protocols for timecritical
communications.
A secondary objective is to provide migration paths from previously-existing industrial
communications protocols. It is this latter objective which gives rise to the diversity of services
standardized as the various Types of IEC 61158, and the corresponding protocols
standardized in subparts of IEC 61158-6.
This specification may be used as the basis for formal application programming interfaces.
Nevertheless, it is not a formal programming interface, and any such interface will need to
address implementation issues not covered by this specification, including
a) the sizes and octet ordering of various multi-octet service parameters, and
b) the correlation of paired request and confirm, or indication and response, primitives.The purpose of this standard is to define the services provided to
1) the FAL user at the boundary between the user and the application layer of the fieldbus
reference model, and
2) Systems Management at the boundary between the application layer and Systems
Management of the fieldbus reference model.
This standard specifies the structure and services of the Type 4 fieldbus application layer, in
conformance with the OSI Basic Reference Model (ISO/IEC 7498) and the OSI application
layer structure (ISO/IEC 9545).
FAL services and protocols are provided by FAL application-entities (AE) contained within the
application processes. The FAL AE is composed of a set of object-oriented application service
elements (ASEs) and a layer management entity (LME) that manages the AE. The ASEs
provide communication services that operate on a set of related application process object
(APO) classes. One of the FAL ASEs is a management ASE that provides a common set of
services for the management of the instances of FAL classes.
BS EN 61158-5-4:2008 history
2014BS EN 61158-5-4:2014 Industrial communication networks. Fieldbus specifications. Application layer service definition. Type 4 elements
2009BS EN 61158-5-11:2008 Industrial communication networks — Fieldbus specifications — Part 5-11: Application layer service definition — Type 11 elements
2004BS EN 61158-5:2004 Digital data communications for measurement and control - Fieldbus for use in industrial control systems - Application layer service definition