1) To form the core of the U.S. TAG to IEC SC65C WG14 and to assist TAG to select experts from the U.S. (The IEC has circulated and accepted document 65C/398/NP. An IEC PAS is published. SC 65C WG 14 was founded.)

2) To define the interfaces for both the vertical and the horizontal data flow, called Function Control and Data Access, in the framework of a Client-Server architecture. It shall allow application software and configuration tools to interact with field devices in a unified way, while hiding the manufacturer-specific interaction with devices or sub-systems in a software module.

3) This standard shall allow any field bus, device or sub-system specific software tool to be integrated as part of a universal life-cycle management tool of a plant automation system.
Purpose

1) To ensure the consistent management of a plant-wide control and automation technology, it is necessary to fully integrate fieldbuses, devices and sub-systems as seamless part of a wide range of automation tasks covering the whole automation life-cycle. The main aims are:

* Universal and central plant-wide tooling for the life-cycle management of heterogeneous fieldbus environments, multi-vendor devices and sub-systems independently of the automation domain (e.g. process, manufacturing)
* Integrated and consistent life-cycle data of the control system including the fieldbuses, devices and sub-systems ·
* Simple but still powerful vendor-independent integration of different automation devices and sub-systems into the life-cycle management tools of a control system.

2) The main application domains are industrial process control and manufacturing execution systems.

3) The benefits are savings in operation, engineering and maintenance of the control systems.

Field Device Tool (FDT)

Competing technologies are getting together to come up with one solution for device integration, said Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) and the Field Device Tool (FDT) Technology Group officials today at Hannover Fair in Hannover, Germany.
After a “secret” meeting at last year’s Hannover Fair, leaders from FDT and EDDL’s Cooperation Team (ECT) decided enough was enough.
“FDT will join ECT as an official member,” said ECT Chairman Hans-Georg Kumpfmueller. “We have already done some technical work to create a new FDI integration.

The goal of this effort is to develop a common Future Device Integration (FDI) architecture. The team will base the architecture on a client server architecture; an independent platform and operating system; independent host system; compatible with existing EDDL- and DTM-based device descriptions; applicable to any field device communication technologies; applicable for hierarchical and heterogeneous network topologies, and an open specification and become an international standard “All of the suppliers are involved with this,” said Flavio Tolfo, managing director of the FDT Group. “The good news is interoperability. Now you don’t have to worry about buying a pressure transmitter from one supplier and wondering if it will work with another transmitter. All of that is now solved.”

Kumpfmueller expects to get a draft specification and prototypes out by 2008.
The two groups will base their effort on OPC UA technology.
The goal behind the FDT Group is to provide an open and non proprietary interface for the integration of field devices with engineering, automation and asset management systems.
EDDL is text-based description of the variables contained in the device such as flow, pressure, drive speed, ambient temperature, among others. The description defines each variable and describes the way to access it.

Redundancy and an improved GUI



Now that the industrial controls industry has gotten the Ethernet bug, the rush is on to devise a range of systems designed to integrate that shop floor with the office LAN.

Industrial automation systems have been pushing the limits of traditional fieldbus technology for some time. Ethernet provides the means to improve control networks for large manufacturing systems and to exchange production and manufacturing information with centralized business intelligence systems in the enterprise.

But to do that most effectively, industrial systems need to embrace more than simple Ethernet protocols and delve further into extension technologies and higher-level communications mechanisms, such as PCIe.

ABB seems to have recognized this need and has updated its line of industrial networking solutions to meet it. The new IndustrialIT Enterprise Connectivity Solution (ECS) offers a single-point interface for connecting industrial systems, like ABB’s IndustrialIT 800xA, with SAP, Oracle and Microsoft enterprise tools, such as databases, OPC-compliant systems and Web services. The new version offers greater online redundancy and an improved GUI.

A Maryland firm called Patton has developed an Ethernet extender system that utilizes twisted copper infrastructures to tie industrial equipment to business machines. The 2172R extender is a 50 Mbps device that can send Ethernet signals up to 3,000 feet over TTL, RS-232 or RS422/485 serial circuits, bridging the office/floor divide without having to run specialized fiber or CAT 5 lines. The device provides six user-selectable symmetrical and asymmetrical line rates and features a rugged casing suitable for -10 to +70 degrees C.

In Europe, work is progressing on defining a new CompactPCI format that will allow industrial backplane systems to better communicate with serial busses like PCI Express, Ethernet, SATA/SAS and USB. The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) aims to define a new peripheral slot that supports these common enterprise standards at a minimum data rate of 10 Gbps. The group stops short of defining an interface for full switched fabrics.

One of the main stumbling blocks for Ethernet-based control systems is that Ethernet is a much more complicated environment than traditional industrial fieldbus technology. But a firm called Pilz Automation Technology is working on that problem through its SafetyNETp protocol. The company claims it provides all the advantages of Ethernet while maintaining the ease of installation of a standard fieldbus. It supports both the RTFL format for fast communications in changing environments and the RTFN format for communication over any Ethernet network.

Increased network integration can only be an unqualified good. Whether it’s the server farm, the storage array or the shop floor, the more systems and software can communicate directly, the more efficiency and productivity will be enhanced.
 

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