Sometimes time goes very fast; a year ago PI published my welcome article on PROFIsafe in PROFINEWS. As everyone expected the number of PROFIsafe nodes installed has reached 5.4 million in year 2015. There is no doubt that this trend will continue for the coming years because of the transition of fieldbus technology from PROFIBUS to PROFINET and market acceptance of safe PLCs for functional safety of the machine.
Functional safety allows safety functions to be defined that can actively react to a 'security' attack. New standards are being drafted that cross the divide between safety and security.
Of particular interest to manufacturers of PROFIsafe controllers is the new F-Host test tool for PROFIsafe V2.61. The F-Host test tool will be used by PI test labs for official certification tests and by vendors of F-Host controllers for in-house tests.
Two new videos help the understanding of PROFINET and PROFIsafe. From Indu-Sol comes a video that shows how PROFINET works by using a street traffic analogy. From PI we have a live demo of PROFIsafe working. PI maintains three YouTube channels to which viewers can subscribe.
The topic of Industrie 4.0 can be examined from many aspects that differ, above all, in their degree of complexity. At the core, however, it boils down to a simple formula: Data plus connectivity lead to increased productivity.
PI North America in cooperation with the PROFI Interface Center created the first North American PROFINET plugfest, hosted by Phoenix Contact in Ann Arbor, MI on August 3-4. Thirty-five engineers from thirteen companies brought six controllers and thirty I/O devices to the plugfest.
One of the many benefits of PI membership is the invitation to have your product news or application story published in PROFINEWS. PROFINEWS has a subscriber base of 225,000 so publication here is a major benefit.
By accomplishing the development of FDI (Field Device Integration) technology PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI) and its partner organizations have passed an extraordinary milestone. Not only because the technology will greatly facilitate the device integration in the future. But - and especially - because FDI is the joint result of a trusting and intensive network of manufacturers and organizations for industrial communication.
