The fifth PI Conference on March 22 and 23, 2017 was a great success. In the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt am Main, about 300 participants got information about trends and innovations related to the technologies of PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI).
In 2017 we celebrate the 13th anniversary of the PI Poland organization, which has been active in supporting the development of industrial networks Profibus, Profinet, and IO-Link. We see a steady increase in interest in our technologies and an annual increase in association membership.
It’s been hard to miss all the activity going on recently around time sensitive networking (TSN) and OPC UA. Here’s what it means for the near-term future of PROFIBUS, PROFINET, and industrial networking in general.
Innovation is, of course, partly about technology. But it is also about massive improvements in productivity through the empowerment of a business’s only untapped resource - its people. After all, a state-of-the-art plant provides exciting opportunities for graduates and engineers who are looking to the future for career advancement and inspired innovation.
IO-Link continues to grow in number of devices installed and in advances to the technology itself. Read this article about IO-Link Safety, wireless connectivity, and a profile for smart sensors. Then read this issue's additional IO-Link articles., application stories, and product news.
PI North America is looking for an automation engineer with excellent oral and written communications skills. At PI North America we write white papers, make videos, teach free PROFINET one-day training classes, blog, tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn, edit PROFINEWS, and more. Help wanted.
The IO-Link Community has launched a service that offers significant value for members and technology users. It is a central database for all IO Device Descriptions. It is free for both members and users.
The intelligence and complexity of sensors and actuators is constantly increasing. Today, even the smallest sensors have a powerful microcontroller and several thousand lines of software code. Firmware updates may occasionally be necessary to enable new functionalities or to add newly supported profiles. To meet these needs, the IO-Link community has specified a firmware update profile.
