Abstract: This paper describes a distributed control system (DCS) for ship engines using dual fieldbus. A communication among the DCS entities is provided by considering redundancy. The dual fieldbus consists of MODBUS and an alternative CAN bus. When there are errors with MODBUS, the system switches to CAN, in a reliable way. The performance of the DCS is evaluated by a real implementation in the test- bed. The experimental results show that the redundancy time required by International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) is satisfied