The KP99, mountable on top hat rail, is a gateway for MVB/AF100. The interface to the control unit – in this case a PLC – is accomplished through a ribbon cable.
Two different physical layer are supported:
– ESD for short connections based on RS-485
– Optical interface for long distance up to 1.3km
Attached to a standard 24VDC, the on board DC/DC converter supplies the logic – galv. Iso. 1500VDC. The FPGA include the MVB/AF100 ASIC interface and establishes a simple universal 8 bit interface through the ribbon cable. The coupler is mounted alongside the PLC and connected through a short ribbon cable.
A more powerfull device was design in 2002 including a local processor system. See also ARM7 / FPGA (KP995)