Automation suppliers commit to Wirelesshart

Executives from automation companies expressed commitment to the Wirelesshart standard and announced product release schedules during the Hart Communication Foundation (HCF) press conference at ISA.

Representatives from ABB, Emerson Process Management, Endress and Hauser and Siemens spoke of the positive impact Wirelesshart technology will have on the process industry and their expectation for the quick adoption of the technology by end users.

Josef Guth, head of Global Instrumentation business unit at ABB, has long believed that a single fieldbus standard would provide significant benefits to both users and vendors.

However, it is a business reality that multiple standards are here to stay.

To maximise customer ability to choose a best-fit solution, ABB support, at board level, all the major global communication protocols for process applications, from device to system host.

Among these technologies, the Hart protocol has stood the test of time, emerging as a global standard with over 26 million installations worldwide.

ABB has been active in the specification of the Hart 7 standard, which includes Wirelesshart.

It has planned the release of Hart 7 devices with Wirelesshart early in 2009.

These products will complement existing ABB wireless solutions, which include vibration monitoring, HMIs, SMS, remote I/O, LAN protocol conversions, metering for oil and gas, pulverised coal and water flow, and robotics position sensing.

Mark Schumacher, president of the Pressure/CPS business unit at Emerson Process Management, is excited that the Wirelesshart standard gives end users the promise of a growing range of wireless products for automation applications.

These will come from the industry-wide member companies of the Hart Communication Foundation that approved the standard in September 2007.

Emerson began shipment in late September of wireless automation products with the new standard built in.

Through success with applications worldwide, end users have demonstrated the appeal of wireless.

They are ready to extend wireless in their plants, and HCF is to be congratulated for the standard that allows mainstream use today.

There are clear reasons why Emerson believes Wirelesshart to be the one standard needed to support the global deployment of wireless technology.

Wireless technology will realise its full potential when end users have the freedom to choose and the scope to perform plant-wide applications.

Wirelesshart delivers this now by enabling standard inter-operable wireless field networks.

Emerson believes Wirelesshart technology will grow to account for more than 20 per cent of the signals in new plants within five years.

Frank Hils, corporate director of Projects and Solutions at Endress and Hauser sees Hart 7 and Wirelesshart as a key to a new era in process automation.

Wirelesshart will unlock information that is hidden in today's intelligent instrumentation.

It will extend the scope of monitoring and automation to areas that were 'in the dark' so far.

In the course of 2009 Endress and Hauser will launch instruments, systems and services designed to improve solutions for plant asset management, process monitoring and the supply chain management of bulk material.

Wirelesshart is seen as a powerful technology to smoothly migrate, extend and improve applications and installations.

It has the full potential to become the standard for wireless field communication in the process industry.

Hans-Georg Kumpfmuller, division president for Sensors and Communication at Siemens sees Wirelesshart as the most important part of Hart 7 as it is currently the only open industrial standard for wireless communication at field level in the process industry available worldwide.

In the process industry there are a lot of critical requirements for many good reasons.

New technologies do always have a job to do to be successful.

Kumpfmuller believes that Wirelesshart will be successful as many customers and big automation suppliers brought their experience in wireless technology into the specification.

In 2009 Siemens plans to have Wirelesshart products to enable customers to build up complete solutions.

Wirelesshart Communication builds on established and field-proven international standards including the Hart protocol (IEC 61158), EDDL (IEC 61804-3), IEEE 802.15.4 radio and frequency hopping, spread spectrum and mesh networking technologies.

The technology addresses the issues users face in the process plant environment and seamlessly integrates existing devices into Hart-enabled systems.

The Hart Communication Foundation provides worldwide support for the application of Hart technology.

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