PROFINET Draws the Future of Industrial Automation
On September 17, 2019, the annual industrial event – China International Industry Fair (CIIF) Industrial Automation Exhibition officially kicked off at the National Convention and Exhibition Center in Shanghai. The theme of the exhibition was “Innovation and Intelligence, Encouraging the Future of Industrial Automation.” The exhibition brought together many leading companies in the automation industry, on-site demonstrations of Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, edge computing, industrial 5G, additive manufacturing, and other cutting-edge technologies. Enterprise digital transformation is becoming the new wisdom of the industry!
In the future, whether it is smart interconnection or collaborative manufacturing, data communication is the most basic requirement from beginning to end. As the most important basic communication standard for enterprise digitalization, PROFINET has recently released the TSN-based PROFINET V2.4 specification. When combined with OPC UA, this has opened up data flow between the vertical and horizontal system levels of the enterprise, enabling all the underlying architectures of the Industrial Internet. During the exhibition, PI-China hosted a huge booth in conjunction with Siemens, Phoenix Contact, PROCENTEC, Hein Lanz Tianjin, Hosta, Microcyber, Nanjing Solidot. In total, 50 members participated in the PI Joint Booth at the Industry Fair.
The Ecosystem of PROFINET Equipment is Growing in China
At present, the implementation of a PROFINET interface can greatly enhance the market competitiveness of products for both foreign suppliers and domestic suppliers. The PROFINET device ecosystem has been initially formed and continues to grow. It is worth mentioning that the PI-China booth included local mainstream Chinese servo drive manufacturers such as Shenzhen Inovance, Invt, HCFA, Maxsine, and Sinee. Local Chinese frequency converter manufacturers included POWTRAN, V&T, DARING, and VEICHI. Additionally, standard PROFINET equipment, such as I/O blocks, gateways, encoders, vision products, and weighing instruments, were also exhibited on the PROFINET Demo Wall. The marketplace is becoming more diverse!
A Variety of Solutions for Implementing PROFINET
For the development of PROFINET interfaces, PI-China currently offers a wide range of options, including the fully open PROFINET master/slave source code stack, embedded boards/modules, chips, and gateways. To ensure that manufacturers can easily and quickly implement PROFINET interfaces into their devices, PI-China and its third-party member companies provide technical services from consulting, evaluation, development, and to product testing. In the device implementation phase, device manufacturers are free to choose the main processor and the operating system, developed either by the device manufacturer themselves or through the mature technology of an external third party or a partner supporting the development.
Value from Data
For end-users, the real value lies in the data. For example, the identification and maintenance data of all devices can be obtained efficiently and easily through PROFINET, and this data will help to realize the implementation of Industry 4.0 finally. For PI, we are always committed to providing our users with the most valuable data network.
ITEI has a long-term and in-depth cooperative relationship with PI and local Chinese manufacturing enterprises. In the future, it will spare no effort to continuously promote the application research of PROFINET technology in China and contribute to the research and development, product testing, certification, and market promotion of domestic equipment based on the technology!