IO-Link has established itself in the market faster than almost any other communication technology. This is confirmed by the number of members in the IO-Link member community and the current node counts. Weiss Robotics was the 100th company to join the member community.
It is great pleasure for me to give you the PROFIsafe Technology updates and its strong position in the market after the first introduction around 15 years ago. Functional safety gets more attention and provides the feasibility to implement safety in machines and at plants. Safety fieldbus communication makes the engineer’s life easier by reducing the complexity of safety engineering and electrical wiring. With more than 4 million installed nodes PROFIsafe technology has established itself in the leading position in the network safety market.
The term 'security' alone causes a media storm – one glance at newspapers and online news sites is all it takes and everyone is in the thick of the discussion around cyber security. Automation and communication technology are not spared from this. This can sometimes create the impression that issues surrounding IT security are a new phenomenon. The experts of PI have concerned themselves for many years with the issue of secure operation of communication technology components, which by nature have always been tightly networked. Also new to the discussion is that the areas of safety and security are moving closer together.
Windows 95 was just released and DVD’s were announced as a new groundbreaking storage media, and the PIC – PROFIBUS Interface Center – was founded in Johnson City, TN. That was 1995. Now, 20 years later, we’re still alive and kicking and busy as always.
In August 2015, Rafael Koenig, Chairman of Profibus Australia, presented at the Future Networks Forum, part of the Westwick Farrow ACI Connect event, to an audience of automation, control, and instrumentation professionals, about Profinet’s role in Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things.
The past five years have been exciting for process automation. It was clear to everyone involved that a turning point was at hand. And, thus, with the development of FDI (Field Device Integration) technology, an important signal was sent. For one thing, because the technology will make future device integration in process automation significantly easier. For another thing, because the collaboration with users, fieldbus organizations, and manufacturers was exceptional. All participants pulled together and wanted to see the project succeed.
With the completion of its goals, the FDI organization is dissolving. But the technology is just beginning its solving of user and vendor requirements. In process automation FDI presents a harmonization of FDT/DTM and EDDL. These two disparate approaches now resolve to a single solution.
FDI was developed by major industrial automation foundations, including PI, and major automation vendors with input from user organizations. FDI is designed to cover the entire lifecycle of process devices including configuration, commissioning, diagnosis, and calibration. (more…)
Though there’s no way to tell exactly what the network of the future will look like under the effects of the Industrial Internet of Things, there are three universal network aspects worth focusing on to prepare yourself—and your network—for the future. (more…)