It's a phenomenon: While most fieldbuses have more or less vanished, Profibus is not only still around but seems to have become stronger over the past decade with its range of application continually increasing. Thus, the demand for information continues to be high. A 'slide set' is supposed to convey detailed know-how.
Are fieldbuses really dead? Quite possible, but they are still twitching. A modernized approach to device management in a bus structure throughout all areas of an industrial plant is FDI - Field Device Integration. The industry alliance behind it is working on IEC standardization, and this week's Achema trade show is a step on the way.
Various players from the field communication area have joined their efforts and intend to co-sponsor the second annual Field Communication Lounge exhibit at two of the world’s largest automation trade shows.
A manufacturer’s declaration is asked by the IO-Link Consortium for all IO-Link Masters and Devices in order to get IO-Link conformity. Therefore, test equipment is neccessary which allows checking all relevant parameters. A major part is EMC conformity.
In industrial systems, machines need to be monitored constantly in order to ensure material stability, system security and personnel safety. The Field Device Technology standard (FDT) takes care of vendor-independent parameterization.
Specialists in fieldbus technologies don’t usually give anything away for free, neither as in free beer nor as in free speech, to quote Richard Stallman. Since manufacturers often even charge extra for supplying the (standard) software driver necessary to operate the devices they sell, any exception of that policy is remarkable.
There are various obstacles for a stronger perpetration of wireless networks in the process industry. Since RF communication would simplify life in many ways, there are efforts being made to overcome them. While a mesh architecture is a good way to get optimum coverage, common solutions are difficult to integrate in automation infrastructures.
Following a comprehensive search for advising industry experts, the nonprofit CAN in Automation (CiA) group has established the CANopen SIG (Special Interest Group) »IEC 61499«. The group’s scope is the development of a framework specification for CANopen-based systems using an IEC 61499 compliant programming environment.
A major driver in the development of »CC-Link IE« was to deliver an automation network for manufacturing without many of today’s shortcomings. It’s meant to be simple to implement, easy to troubleshoot and use standard Ethernet tools. The current result is »CC-Link IE Field«.
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