Following the PROFIsafe theme of this issue, PI has announced two courses being taught in Karlsruhe on the subject in October. In Italy, a PROFIBUS & PROFINET Day is slated to take place in Naples and an IO-Link Workshop is being offered in Bergamo. A similar IO-Link Workshop will be held in Minnesota, USA as well. ABB has announced two PROFIBUS trainings in Germany in November. The Middle East held its first PROFIday, which is shaping up to be a quarterly event.
New products this month include: PROFINET connectivity for Banner Engineering vision systems and Murrelektronik safety I/O, conformity for HARTING Ethernet connectors, and a new Phoenix Contact PROFIBUS DP to PA coupler.
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…)
DCP is part of the PROFINET protocol suite and stands for “Discovery and Configuration Protocol”. It is used by the engineering tool and controller to discover devices, identify device information, and configure device settings such as PROFINET device name and IP address on a PROFINET network. PROFINET DCP is an Ethernet link layer protocol and offers multiple services. (more…)
Did you know that IO-Link has an incredible number of parameter assignment methods?
This article takes a look at five different use cases for accessing IO-Link devices and how configuration settings can be transferred to them.
Example 1: How are parameters assigned for an IO-Link device that is simply lying on the table? Several manufacturers offer IO-Link masters for this purpose, which are connected to a PC via USB or a wireless connection. Each IO-Link device has an IODD (IO Device Description-file). The device tool takes the IODD, which enables it to present the device on the screen and to read, write, and edit process data, parameters, and diagnostics. (more…)
This white paper reports – oriented to the timeline of the technology development – which functions and capabilities of PROFINET are currently meeting the demands of process automation and which can be implemented and then used in products in the future based on specifications that are complete or in progress. (more…)
