IEC 60870

Gaurav P.P. Mahambre

Uttam Prabhudessai
• The International Electrotechnical
Commission 60870 standards define systems
used for telecontrol (supervisory control and
data acquisition).

• Such systems are used for controlling electric

power transmission grids and other
geographically widespread control systems.
Features of IEC 60870-5
Standards
System topology
Message structure
Addressing
Message Transport
Application Data Objects
Interoperability
Standards
• IEC 60870 refers to a standard produced in a
number of parts between 1988 and 2000 by the
International Electrotechnical Commission, or IEC.

• IEC standard 60870 has six parts.

1. IEC 60870-1
2. IEC 60870-2
3. IEC 60870-3
4. IEC 60870-4
5. IEC 60870-5
6. IEC-60870-6
Structure of IEC 60870-5
System Topology
• IEC 60870-5-101, or T101, supports point-to-point and
multidrop communication links carrying low-bandwidth data
communications.
• It provides the choice of using balanced or unbalanced
communication.
• With unbalanced communication, only the master can
initiate communications by transmitting primary frames.
• All communications are initiated by master station requests,
such as to request user data if available.
• Balanced communication is available, but this is limited to
point-to-point links only.
• Balanced communication - limited to point-to-point
links only.
• Either can initiate transaction
• Better efficiency of communications system usage.
• Collision problems as two stations can transmit
simultaneously. Collision avoidance and recovery
required.
• Unbalanced communication – suitable for
multidrop:
• Only master can send primary frames.
• Collision avoidance is not required .
Message Structure
• The message structure under IEC 60870-5-101 is
formed by a data link layer frame carrying link
address and control information, a flag to
indicate if Class 1 data is available, and optional
application data.
• Each frame can carry a maximum of one
application service data unit(ASDU).
• In the case where user data is
not required in the frame,
either a fixed length frame,
or a single character
acknowledgement may be
used.
Addressing
• IEC 60870-5-101 addressing is both at the link and at the
application level.
• The link address field may be 1 or 2 octets for unbalanced, and 0, 1
or 2 octets for balanced communications.
• As balanced communications are point-to-point the link address is
redundant, but may be included for security.
• The link address FF or FFFF is defined as a broadcast address, and
may be used to address all stations at the link level.
• At the application level, the ASDU contains a 1 or 2 octet common
address. This is defined as the address of the controlling station in
the ‘control direction’, and the address of the controlled station in
the ‘monitoring direction’.
• The common address of the ASDU combined with the information
object address contained within the data itself combine to make
the unique address for each data element.
Message Transport
• There are two different methods of transporting
messages.
• The first is IEC 60870-5-101, or T101, which provides
for bit-serial communications over low-bandwidth
communications channels. This method uses the data
link frame shown before.
• The second methods is IEC 608705-104, or T104, in
which the lower levels of the protocol have been
completely replaced by the TCP and IP transport and
network protocols.
• These protocols provide for
transport of the application
service data units (ASDUs)
shown in figure over
corporate local area networks
and wide area networks .
• The structure of the protocol,
or ‘protocol stack’ is shown
below:
Application Data Objects
• IEC 60870-5 has information on a set of
information objects that are suited to both
general SCADA applications, and electrical
system applications.
• Each different type of data has a unique type
identification number.
• Only one type of data is included in any one
ASDU.
• The information object types
are grouped by direction and
by type of information, as
follows:
Interoperability

• Interoperability under IEC 60870-5 is achieved

by a ten-page interoperability statement.

• This identifies all of the different operating

modes, configurable options, ASDUs, causes of
transmission, and other information that is
important in ensuring compatibility.