PI Chairman Karsten Schneider shares his observations on the importance of communications - not just in bits and bytes, but person-to-person and organization-to-organization. The huge success of PI technologies is based on communication. The quality and widespread global use of PI technologies would never have been possible if the PROFIBUS and PROFINET developers had not had an outstanding character trait - the absolute determination to communicate with one another.
Because the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) leverages so many existing technologies, it seems that everybody and their mother can claim to have the necessary expertise. But let’s not forget that IIoT roots are firmly planted within industrial Ethernet.
PI was an integral part of the embedded world trade-show last month. The co-exhibitors Innovasic, Molex, Phoenix Contact, Renesas, and Siemens gave information about how to implement PROFINET and what kind of support can be expected during development.
PI North America, in collaboration with the PROFI Interface Center, is proud to announce the creation of workshops dedicated to developers of automation devices. The classes guide a vendor through the options open to them when they decide to add a PROFINET interface to their device.
PI sponsors a range of classes: free one-day training classes, PROFIBUS & PROFINET Certified Network Engineer classes, and the newly created PROFINET Developer Classes. Globally, there is a five-city series in France featuring PROFIBUS, PROFINET, and wireless PROFINET and in Germany there's a plugfest.
PROFINET Commander is a vendor-independent PROFINET software utility which runs on a Windows PC and allows you to set up, test, and commission devices quickly without special programming (i.e. without a PLC) or additional hardware.
Recently on a LinkedIn forum, someone asked the following question: "I am a new instrumentation engineer. How does 4 - 20 mA technology work?" What followed was an in-depth analysis of the origins and history of the technology. Lost in the heat of the discussion, two people made almost the same comment: "We should leave that behind and just switch to fieldbus!"
Did you know that IO-Link drastically reduces the number of interfaces needed? Modern automation systems contain a variety of sensors and actuators from different manufacturers that are linked to controllers. IO-Link provides a universal physical interface for wiring and a uniform interface for configuration and parameter assignment.
