Automation Portals

Industrial I/O Portal

Articles

		Machine-Mount I/O Go Everywhere - 04/25/12 Control Design, April 2012 By Jim Montague Technical advances, regulatory reforms allow I/O components to do the same jobs outside of their former enclosures.

		The changing face of data logging - 04/07/12 Instrumentation, March 2012 By Nathan Neal, Grant Instruments After three decades, the data logging market is still going strong, driven by new technologies, greater penetration of wireless data links and web enabled instrumentation.

		7 cable management mistakes to avoid - 02/20/12 Automation.com, February 2012 By Igus To prevent unnecessary downtime, your cable management system must be correctly specified, designed, and installed. Here are seven common cable management mistakes and how you can avoid making them.

		Smarter marshalling - 02/17/12 South Africa Instrumentation & Control, February 2012 By Andrew Ashton The more terminations in a loop, the more the effort and cost of installation, the more potential there is for installation errors (open circuit/crossed wires) and the more the effort required for cold commissioning checks. Marshalling can help.

		Giving Power-over-Ethernet some muscle - 01/29/12 Machine Design, January 2012 By Robert Repas One can only assume that the next IEEE standard will double the power levels again. Until then, proprietary techniques such as the LTPoE++ format can fill the power gap where needed.


		Security at the device level - 01/15/12 Plant Engineering, January 2012 By Matt Luallen Individual field devices may be the target of cyber attacks. Getting that deep is a challenge, but attackers have done it.

		Simplify Signal Processing - 12/28/11 Control Design, December 2011 By Dan Hebert Adding analog inputs or signal processing functionality to a machine or robot control system often can increase costs and complexity substantially. Signal conditionners can help.

		Data in Moderation - 12/28/11 Control Design, December 2011 By Jeremy Pollard Over the past 10 years or so, data has been retrieved from control devices, using Ethernet or bus systems, and now we have more data than we know what to do with. Data is like good wine. Have just enough and you'll be a happy camper. Have too much and you'll get a hangover.

		Bluetooth Low Energy: the best media for sensors and actuators? - 12/18/11 Industrial Ethernet Book, November 2011 By Rolf Nilsson, connectBlue The advent of Bluetooth Low Energy - which leverages low energy Bluetooth v4.0, Classic Bluetooth and high speed Bluetooth 3.0 + HS - opens up the possibility of integrating Bluetooth sensors into industrial plant and equipment.

		SCADA virtualisation – delivering real benefits? - 12/18/11 Control Engineering Europe, December 2011 By Tony Chapman, Siemens Virtualisation for SCADA systems brings many benefits such as time and cost savings, greater levels of security and operational efficiency advantages

		Making Sense of MEMS - 12/07/11 InTech, December 2011 By Jesse Bonfeld Advances in MEMS technologies and techniques mean manufacturers are now able to produce capable MEMS sensors and devices, but quite a few of these sensors and devices cannot be installed directly into an end application because they cannot survive the rigors of final assembly.

		Smarter I/O Addresses a Host of Issues - 09/24/11 Control, September 2011 By Dan Hebert Smart I/O provides a microprocessor at the I/O level—adding flexibility, protocol conversion and/or high-speed local I/O processing and control.

		How cellular technology will transform remote monitoring systems - 09/11/11 What’s New in Process Technology, September 2011 By Daniel Liu, Moxa The advent of advanced cellular communications technology has freed system integrators from bandwidth limitations and unleashed new potential in remote monitoring systems.

		Signal Processing Drives Network Design - 09/11/11 Industrial Networking, Fall 2011 By Dan Hebert Remote I/O doesn't make sense in all cases because it's sometimes better to bring raw signals directly from sensors and dumb instruments to local I/O for centralized signal processing and control.

		Signal reliability in wind turbine environments - 08/31/11 Control Engineering, August 2011 By John Lehman Protect against electrical noise distortions in monitoring and control signals to help ensure reliable collection of wind turbine data, for safe and efficient wind turbine operation.

		Optimizing the Calibration of Sensor Interfaces with Built-in Correction Algorithms - 07/23/11 Sensors, July 2011 By David Grice, ZMD America Sensor signal conditioners with built-in correction algorithms can greatly aid sensor system designers as long as they understand which algorithm to use and when.

		Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting - 06/28/11 Sensors, June 2011 By Jim O'Callaghan, EnOcean Thermal energy harvesting can capture the power from the temperature differentials, enabling its use to power HVAC controls such as water valves, variable air volume vents (VAVs), and diffusers.

		Reducing costs with an integrated automation system - 06/12/11 InTech, June 2011 By Greg Dixson Thanks to lower cost control systems and advances in software, I/O, and Ethernet infrastructure, control engineers can better use industrial automation for its core purpose—to increase production flexibility and reduce the cost of ownership in a manufacturing or process facility.

		Certified Security: It’s Coming - 05/27/11 Automation World, May 2011 By Dave Gehman Industrial controllers, devices and networks that are certified secure—comprehensively secure—don’t exist, for the simple reason that the standards are not all in place. But bits and pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

		Regular Calibration Pays Off - 05/14/11 Industrial Automation Asia, April 2011 By Fluke Conducting regular calibration procedures check and measure production processes. The advantage of this is the control in the quality of products, which leads to productivity and earnings.

		Increased sensing accuracy with signal conditioning - 05/14/11 South Africa Instrumentation & Control, May 2011 By Brett Burger, National Instruments Signal conditioning provides a distinct advantage over data acquisition devices alone because it enhances both the performance and measurement accuracy of data acquisition systems.

		Finding Your Balance - 05/14/11 Process Heating, April 2011 By Burns Engineering This article presents an analysis of cable resistance imbalance in three-wire RTDs, with emphasis on the errors that affect the accuracy of the temperature measurement. Guidance and techniques are given for minimizing the magnitude of these errors.

		From the Field - ABB Automation and Power World 2011 - 05/11/11 Automation.com, May 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Here are a few highlights from ABB Automation & Power World 2011. The event attracted a record number of participants, totaling more than 4,200, and featured over 400 educational workshops and hands-on training sessions, over 45 customer-presented case studies, and an exhibition of ABB and partner products.

		Device Connection Technology: An IOpener - 04/24/11 Control Design, April 2011 By Joe Feeley We might want to pay a little attention to a device connection technology that's largely unknown to North American machine builders. IO-Link is a sensor/actuator connection system supported by a consortium of about 50 well-known automation suppliers.

		Back to Basics: Simplify device-level wiring - 04/17/11 Control Engineering, April 2011 By Richard Chung, Eaton Faster connectivity, data monitoring, and circuit protection are among advantages of device-level wiring solutions.

		Switch Types Affect Test Results - 04/09/11 Design News, March 2011 By Jon Titus Many data-acquisition and measurement tasks do not demand simultaneous sampling or analog-to-digital conversions. So, measuring instruments can connect to devices under test (DUT) one by one through switches or multiplexers (MUXs). Here’s how those switches affect their tests.

		Get Out of Your Enclosures Box - 03/26/11 Control Design, March 2011 By Aaron Hand Custom enclosures can mean anything from getting a better fit for the desired space to filling the box with needed components.

		How to prevent power surges - 03/26/11 South Africa Instrumentation & Control, March 2011 By Jasmine Lin, Moxa Industrial automation operators generally understand that power surges pose a serious threat to their systems and take steps to reduce this threat. Not only do power surges damage and destroy equipment, they cause costly interruptions.

		Working Smarter: Diagnostic Tools Cut Costs And Save Time - 02/17/11 Process Industry Informer, February 2011 By Gary Provis ,Siemens Industry Automation Intelligent diagnostics for process systems - exemplified through easy-to-use diagnostics tools - can aid speedy fault finding and rectification, and play a central role in helping companies maintain a competitive edge.

		Fieldbus-Where's the Love? - 02/17/11 Control, February 2011 By John Rezabek To the dismay of some in the engineer/procure/construct (EPC) world, fieldbus can add complexity that was automated out of the point-to-point world decades ago. How does fieldbus bring flux and uncertainty where there used to be order?

		Controls Devices (Part 1 of 3) - 02/14/11 Automated Buildings, February 2011 By Steven R. Calabrese This installment is part one of a three-part series. It’s a “quick reference” guide to temperature controls devices, covering not all but a good amount of what makes up a typical HVAC temperature control system in this day and age.

		Digital Speed Breathes Life Into Analog I/O - 02/14/11 Control Design, February 2011 By Jim Montague Analog I/O components are using faster, cheaper and more powerful data processors to do A/D Converting, analyses and other calculations in local controllers in the field. This means they no longer need special communications to a PLC or centralized controller, and can be deployed in more locations and applications.

		Omron focuses on discrete application leadership - 02/11/11 Automation.com, February 2011 In November of 2010, I attended the Omron Automotive Summit in Chicago and had the opportunity to interview Gregg Holst, Chief Operating Officer and President of Omron Americas. The clear message is that Omron is laser focused on discrete automation and control applications.

		Device Diagnostics and Asset Management - 02/07/11 Control Engineering, January 2011 By Herman Storey, Herman Storey Consulting As field devices and networks get smarter, are we getting any smarter on how we use them and put that information to work? Effective use of automated diagnostic capabilities in devices in a larger context of an asset management program can provide huge benefits in manufacturing at many levels.

		Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable (PAR) - Part 4 - Wireless in Manufacturing - 01/25/11 Automation.com, January 2011 This is the fourth article in a series about the annual Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable (PAR). Automation professionals from leading life sciences companies discussed the use of wireless technologies in manufacturing, citing specific successful examples.

		Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable (PAR) - 5 Part Article Series - 01/25/11 Automation.com, January 2011 This 5 part article series is based on the recent Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable (PAR). Automation professionals from leading life sciences companies gathered together to discuss MES, visualization, software development, system life-cycle planning, executive governance, electronic testing, wireless and more.

		Automation Standards Are More Like Guidelines - 01/16/11 Control, January 2011 By Jim Montague The IEC 61131-3 standard for programming PLCs is a non-standard because many of its rules are so generally stated, and because it allows so many exceptions and proprietary software extensions that its initial definitions and original promise of portability of software between devices is unfulfilled.

		Muxes and Field-Sourced Power - 01/16/11 Control, January 2011 By John Rezabek Unlike traditional remote I/O solutions, Electronic Marshalling collapses knife edge disconnects and I/O conditioning to a small module that publishes the signal to an "I/O cloud" accessible by controllers.

		All That Noise - 01/16/11 Mechanical Engineering, January 2011 By Jack Thornton Noise is the unwanted data that accompanies all but the simplest measurements. And according to experts in the field of digital simulation, noise in data can be costly, in terms of time, money, and error, when it gets into computer analysis of engineering designs.

		Sensor and Actuator Circuits: Safety & Reliablility - 01/09/11 Industrial Automation Asia, January 2011 By Erich Fischer, E-T-A Germany The failure of the I/O field voltage not only has a devastating impact on process value acquisition, process visualisation and mandatory plant reporting, but may even bring entire field sections to a standstill.

		Performance metrics for Industrial Ethernet Industrial Ethernet Book By James Moyne and Dawn Tilbury Industrial Ethernet is appealing for mission-critical use such as control and safety. The application context demands a fresh look at the performance issues involved. The University of Michigan's Engineering Research Centre for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems has been exploring the issue with a reconfigurable factory test bed using fully networked control, diagnostics and safety capabilities.

		Modular I/O - Solution or Headache - 12/18/10 Industrial Networking, December 2010 By Ian Verhappen There are a number of reasons that modular I/O is not very prevalent in North America. The two primary roadblocks are field power and standard backhaul protocol.

		Invensys OpsManage 2010: Enterprise Control System - the journey continues... Automation.com, November 2010 At Invensys OpsManage 2010, IOM expanded on their Enterprise Control System (ECS). Steve Blair defined enterprise control as understanding and manipulating the real business drivers to optimize operations from plant floor through enterprise.

		Signal isolators, converters and interfaces - Part 2 - 10/20/10 What’s New in Process Technology, October 2010 By Moore Industries Pacific Part 1 of this article covered some of the basics of signal isolation and conversion. This part goes beyond the basics to look at some more advanced applications.

		Simplifying Connections - 10/13/10 Control Engineering Asia, September 2010 By Nathan Pettus Electronic Marshalling of I/O focuses on the areas of commissioning a process automation system that are the most complex, involve many hours of labor, or that can disrupt a project the most.

		A look into the Position Sensors Markets - 10/05/10 Automation.com, October 2010 Earlier this year, VDC Research Group’s Industrial Automation and Control Practice teamed up with Automation.com and other Industrial Automation and sensor industry partners to conduct a survey on the position sensing market. This article will provide readers with a few selected insights into the Photoelectric, Proximity and Limit Switch markets.

		Your Next Network Connection Could Be a Powerline - 09/12/10 Machine Design, August 2010 By Leland E. Teschler Goodbye to fieldbus? Maybe so, if a new generation of powerline-communication gear lives up to expectations. Smart-grid applications for power-line communications could pave the way for using the technology as a less-expensive fieldbus networking scheme.

		Convergence-or Not. That's the Question - 09/10/10 Control, September 2010 By Walt Boyes We have a serious problem with the adoption of wireless field devices in the process industries. Now that the Chinese WIA standard has been approved by IEC, we are very close to having four standards. The drive of the ISA100.11a team to produce a new version of ISA100.11a-2010 could actually produce a fifth standard.

		Electrical design software gaining more acceptance Automation.com, September 2010 By Bill Lydon As U.S. companies gain a better understanding of their costs and risks on projects, more are beginning to use electrical design software. This shift has led to a greater focus on efficiency and systemizing knowledge – ideal for what these software systems accomplish.

		Time for Innovation declared at NIWeek 2010 Automation.com, August 2010 By Bill Lydon NIWeek 2010 attracted a record 3000 engineers, scientists and researchers from all over the world. Dr. James Truchard highlighted how NI's products help users become more like Edison by enabling them to innovate more quickly. Jeff Kodosky elaborated on their innovative research on distributed real-time systems and the tight integration of hardware configuration along with timing.

		Wired or Wireless - Just DO It - 08/13/10 Control, August 2010 By John Rezabek If you have smart instrumentation in your facility, the time is at hand to get some value from it. You may be quite amazed by what you find, from valves that haven't gone to their requested positions in years to transmitters that are freezing or overheated.

		Industry Perspectives from Honeywell User Group 2010 - 07/20/10 Automation.com, July 2010 By Bill Lydon Review the industry perspectives, technology and solutions from HUG Americas 2010. Highlights include an overview of five megatrends identified by Norm Gilsdorf, Honeywell's commitment to legacy products, training and service, and introduction of a new RTU, safety remote IO, in-controller batch manager, and turbo machine controller. Plus, see an example of control system virtualization.

		Four Ways to Enhance ESD Protection After Your Design Flunks Its ESD Test - 07/18/10 Machine Design, July 2010 By Chad Marak and Jim Colby, Silicon Protection Arrays You thought your electrostatic-discharge protection was bulletproof, yet the IC still fried in test. Now what?

		Digital-to-analog in the loop: Closed, open, and ’set and forget’ systems - 07/18/10 Industrial Embedded Systems, July 2010 By Mark Thoren, Linear Technology Choosing a DAC at different resolutions involves trade-offs for price, package size, reference accuracy, and output impedance.

		Driving Technology and Innovation Together Automation.com, July 2010 By Bill Lydon Review the technology and innovations presented by Siemens at their recent 2010 Automation Summit, held in Charlotte, NC. Highlights include Siemens’ focus on energy, advancements in their process control offering, their industrial communications strategy and new distributed panel devices.

		PACs & I/O Go Wireless - 07/11/10 Industrial Automation Asia, July 2010 By Jean Femia, Opto 22 Automation engineers are beginning to seriously consider wireless solutions for all or part of their applications. But with all these good reasons to use wireless, several concerns remain. Among them are security, network performance and reliability, availability and cost of I/O components

		Going the short distance - 07/10/10 South Africa Instrumentation & Control, July 2010 By Darvin Kaelberer, Banner Engineering Wireless technology, which is frequently used in factories and other industrial settings where I/Os must be sent from a remote area to an operator located several kilometres away, can also make sense if data only has to travel a few metres.

		Flexible Sensor Signal Conditioning and Safe Transmission - 06/23/10 Sensors, June 2010 By Joachim Quasdorf and Marko Hepp, iC-Haus Article describes the structure of a universal, integrated, programmable signal conditioner—designed for use with linear and rotary encoders, AMR sensors, and opto sensors with on-sensor preconditioned signals.

		Standards, Manufacturing Upgrades Affect Wire and Cable Performance - 06/23/10 Control Design, June 2010 By Mike Bacidore The electrical characteristics for cable must meet or exceed performance standards set by a variety of organization, including TIA/EIA and ISO/IEC, and Ethernet applications defined by IEEE, as well as safety codes by NEC and NFPA.

		The power of integration exemplified at ABB A&PW 2010 By Bill Lydon, Automation.com The "Connect, Learn, Succeed" theme of this event was about users forming stronger working relationships with ABB. The event brought the opportunity to connect across disciplines and apply products and knowledge - focusing on the power of integration, particularly between automation and power systems. The event attracted more than 4,000 people and offered more than 400 educational and hands-on sessions and a 100,000 sf. exhibit area.

		Wireless Sensors In Real-Time - 05/25/10 IMPO, May 2010 By Aaron LaJoie, Electrochem Solutions Latency is an inherent trait of all wireless. Unlike a conventional analog signal, there are delays associated with the analog-to-digital conversion process, as well as radio frequency transmissions.

		The Instrumentation Cloud Brings Web-Centric Operation to Sensors - 05/25/10 Sensors, May 2010 By Marius Ghercioiu, Cores Electronic Combining RFID, analog signal conditioning, and sensors enables you to shift data analysis, monitoring, and control into the cloud.

		Hardware authentication secures design IP and end-user experience - 05/23/10 Embedded Computing Design, May 2010 By Robert Rozario, Infineon Technologies Protecting electronic systems from counterfeiting is a growing challenge for OEMs. With the move to outsourced manufacturing for consumer electronics and computer peripherals, it is increasingly difficult to protect IP and prevent unauthorized production of devices using an OEM brand.

		Pneumatics Integrates With Electronics - 05/23/10 Automation World, May 2010 By C. Kenna Amos Current trends for industrial pneumatics show expansion into more electronics as well as integration with them.

		Making Sense of Data Management on Intelligent Devices - 04/19/10 By Ryan Phillips, ITTIA Flat file formats are not robust enough to handle all of the problems that embedded developers will face as storage media continues to grow in size. A relational embedded database is a powerful and important tool in any embedded developer's arsenal.

		Web-based Wired and Wireless Controller For Better ROI - 03/26/10 Automated Buildings, March 2010 By David Lamarche, SCL Elements BAS still require the use of several wired devices, which means that wired and wireless technologies need to be integrated together within a single system to enable centralized control.

		Flexibility, Integration Key For FPGAs in Automation - 03/19/10 Automation World, March 2010 By Gary Mintchell Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips have been around since 1984, but this venerable technology continues to find a dedicated user community in industrial automation.

		The Path to Protection - 03/19/10 Control Engineering Asia, March 2010 By Paul Haake, Chloride North America Engineers are employing more electronic equipment, much of it adopted from non-industrial applications, and almost all of it more sensitive to electrical disturbances than the equipment being replaced. These are then mixed with the inherently poor power environment of an industrial facility and aging power generation and distribution facilities.

		Distributed control provides plug-and-play function blocks - 03/13/10 Process & Control Engineering, March 2010 By Ralf Möbus, Safety Network International With distributed control a fully mechatronical modularisation of machinery is possible where modules can act almost independently from the rest of the machinery. Such an approach offers several advantages for machine builders.

		CE is no guarantee - 03/13/10 Control Engineering Europe, March 2010 By Paul Laidler, Laidler Associates There’s a widespread belief among machine users that when they buy a new machine, all they need to do to meet their obligations under PUWER is to make sure that it bears the CE marking. But it’s not that simple.

		Making Analog Data Digital - 03/13/10 Control Engineering, March 2010 By Peter Way, VentiMar A discussion of how analog data taken from process and discrete field devices and sensors is converted into a digital representation for use in a control system.

		Collecting Data Reports from Controllers - 03/13/10 Control Engineering, March 2010 By William Love, Kredit Automation & Controls A tutorial on how to create a simple solution using common off-the-shelf software to solve a variety of manufacturing data collection needs.

		New Gigabyte Industrial Ethernet Open Protocol - CC-Link IE The CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) announced the release of the open architecture gigabit (GB) CC-Link IE Field Network. I recently met with two members of CLPA Americas to get an update on the latest CC-Link IE standard. Chuck Lukasik is the Director of CLPA Americas and John Woznaik is their Network Specialist.

		Outsourcing Your Engineering - 02/28/10 Manufacturing.net, February 2010 By Amanda Earing Outsourcing your engineering can free up your in-house engineering department to focus on other projects, and saves time and money.

		Re-Shoring: Bringing Manufacturing Back To American Suppliers - 02/28/10 Manufacturing.net, February 2010 By Michael Collins, MPC Management Many manufacturers have begun to pull their supply chains back. They have learned that problems beyond their control like flu viruses, energy prices, earthquakes, and geopolitical disturbances are threats to their supply chains. They also now know the additional costs of unanticipated problems.

		Prevent 24 VDC overloads from stopping production - 02/19/10 What’s New in Process Technology, February 2010 By Siemens Along with the laws of physics, engineers have to be aware of the law of unintended consequences. Take, for example, something as simple as the 24 VDC power supplies that feed the control circuits in automation systems as a case in point.

		Signal conditioners: The 'ins' and 'outs' - 02/16/10 InTech, February 2010 By Jay DeCastro Whether you call them signal conditioners, isolators, converters, or interfaces, these useful process instruments solve important ground loop challenges every day.

		LXI vs. PXI in Switching Applications Evaluation Engineering, January 2010 By David Owen, Pickering Interfaces Article has case histories and gives selection advice on the two most common platforms for switching systems, PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) and LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation (LXI).

		A New Approach to Wireless Power Transfer - 01/27/10 Sensors, January 2010 By Fady Mishriki The conventional approach to getting power to the rotating parts of industrial equipment is to use a mechanical slip ring. Unfortunately, slip rings present reliability problems along with the associated downtime and ongoing maintenance costs. Today, however, device designers have another option: wireless power transfer.

		Dealing with Undocumented Field Device Changes - 01/20/10 Control Engineering, January 2010 By David Greenfield Field device parameter alterations persist across industries despite the potentially enormous problems they can cause. The good news: fixing the problem isn’t difficult. The bad news: the options and concerns surrounding selection of the right correction method are nearly limitless.

		Growing Problem with Counterfeit Electrical Products By Bill Lydon, Automation.com Manufacturers and trade associations are devoting much attention to the effects of counterfeit electrical products. People who work in manufacturing facilities should be mindful of the consequences of using inferior goods marketed deceptively under brand names of reputable companies.

		Look Deeper at Shielding - 12/15/09 Design News, December 2009 By Jon Titus The Audio Engineering Society AES48-2005 standard covers grounding and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). The standard stresses the need to properly shield cables to reduce coupling with noise sources.

		Rockwell Automation Fair 2009 - Smart, Safe & Sustainable Manufacturing By Bill Lydon As usual, Rockwell Automation Fair was an impressive event with over 8,000 attendees. Rockwell's continued focus on process control punctuates their very direct message that the Logix architecture can meet all control and automation requirements from discrete to process control.

		Siemens Industry's New Automation Organization By Bill Lydon Interview with Raj Batra President, Industry Automation Division Batra was formerly vice president, Automation & Motion, for Siemens Energy & Automation. The Industry Automation division, based in Alpharetta, Ga., encompasses automation products including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and controls for discrete and process automation.

		An Update on Shielding - 11/17/09 Design News, November 2009 By Jon Titus When a length of cable shield exceeds 1/20th of the wavelength of the highest-frequency noise signal, you should ground both ends of the shield. But what's the source of the 1/20th rule?

		Sensor Fusion — It's Hot! - 11/17/09 Design News, November 2009 By Kevin Craig Sensors complement each other, giving rise to the name complementary filtering or sensor fusion. The basic concept is: If a time-varying signal is applied to both a high-pass filter and a low-pass filter, and if the two filter output signals are summed, the summed output signal is exactly equal to the input signal.

		Engineers Improve Uptime With Real-time Data - 11/17/09 Automation World, November 2009 By Alex Anderson Getting the facts directly from the machine leads engineers to the real causes of downtime and helps them keep machines running productively.

		Invensys Integrates P&F Intrinsically Safe I/O Invensys has moved from a "build everything attitude" that had been a hallmark of the company to partnering with strong suppliers in areas that are not core competencies. The tight integration with Pepperl+Fuchs for Intrinsically Safe I/O shows the Invensys commitment to best of breed partners. The solution is certified for Zone 1 and Zone 2 hazardous environments.

		Changes at ISA - A Current Volunteer Leader's Perspective - 11/06/09 by Don Frey, ISA Volunteer Leader Faced with unprecedented declines in demand for training, advertising, and exhibit space, the ISA has had to make drastic cuts in its budget for 2010. Some significant areas where cuts have been made are in the areas of professional staff, frequency of publication of InTech magazine, ISA E-News production and distribution, and future ISA EXPO offerings.

		Protecting Mission Critical Electronics In Industrial Environments - 09/20/09 Maintenance Technology, September 2009 By Paul Haake, Chloride North America Don't let power and electrical noise problems disrupt your operations. Check out these solutions.

		Machine Data Acquisition Capabilities Grow - 09/20/09 Control Design, September 2009 By Phil Burgert Better data acquisition technologies for factory settings are raising interest among machine builders and their customers. Maintenance and service top the list of benefits that can be leveraged, but increasing capabilities for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems also are coming along.

		Designing a Second-Order Anti-aliasing Filter for a Sensor Signal Path - 08/24/09 Sensors, August 2009 By Beb Hennink, National Semiconductor Aliasing in sensor signal paths can be avoided by using an anti-aliasing filter between the sensor and the ADC. This article describes how to design a simple, second-order anti-aliasing filter

		What’s the Right Blend in Automation Platforms? - 08/20/09 Managing Automation, August 2009 By Stephanie Neil Manufacturers don’t have the time or money to overhaul antiquated automation systems. It’s not an easy task for companies that have spent the past 20 years investing in a cornucopia of control, including PLCs, CNC or a DCS, on top of which they’ve built out a complex network of I/O communication modules, sensors, and software from historians to HMIs.

		Variable Measurements Evolve - 08/20/09 Control Design, August 2009 By Jim Montague Pressure and other air signals aren't new, but what's evolving is higher resolution for converting 0-10 V analog signals into 10-bit or 16-bit digital.

		Understanding Solid-state relays Automation.com, August 2009 By TJ Landrum, Product Manager, Eaton Solid-state relays (SSR) are able to perform many of the same tasks as electromechanical relays. Essentially, an SSR is an electronic device that relies on the electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of semiconductors and electrical components to achieve its isolation and relay switching function.

		Technology & Engineers Celebrated at NIWeek 2009 Dr. James Truchard opened the conference by describing National Instruments' technical directions and thanking attendees for taking on new challenges by innovating and solving problems. NIWeek 2009 attendance was up over last year and that alone is a significant statement compared with other conferences this year. It was billed as the Worldwide Graphical System Design conference providing three days of over 200 interactive technical sessions, exhibitions, and hands-on workshops on the technologies for control, design, measurement, automation, manufacturing, and test.

		Remote service reduces maintenance costs - 07/19/09 Plant Engineering, July 2009 By John W. DuBay, ABB Remote service provides you with a cost effective way to keep your plant running at peak performance, for a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches.

		Make the Most of Historical Process Data Chemical Processing, May 2009 By Dane Overfield, Exele Information Systems A data historian and the right tools and resources, coupled with continuous data collection during uptime and downtime, allows analysis that can provide insights about production downtimes, enabling you to increase your runtime, product output and profits.

		Product Briefs from Hannover Messe By Bill Lydon Over 6,000 companies showed products at Hannover Messe and there are important trends that are worth noting. Here are highlights of some products that caught my interest - some due to functional sophistication and others because of their elegant simplicity.

		Everybody's Converting Industrial Networking, Spring 2009 By Philip Burgert For industrial systems and applications, it’s practical to convert analog signals to digital for amplification and computation, multi-variable and bidirectional communication, reducing media cost and complexity or improving system accuracy and speed.

		Data Acquisition and Logging Gets on Track Control, April 2009 By Rich Merritt Modern data acquisition equipment is useful, friendly and inexpensive. You can use it anywhere--even in a race car. As it turns out, someone did just that, and set a world drag racing record using industrial I/O, DAQ and HMI equipment to tune the car. You can use the same techniques for automation and control.

		Solid-state micro-energy cells uniquely enable energy harvesting Industrial Embedded Systems, March 2009 By Tim Bradow, Infinite Power Solutions Energy harvesting is great, but it's better if there is somewhere to store the energy. Advanced energy storage technology is creating new design opportunities for small sensors, transmitters, and MCUs, but batteries aren’t good enough.

		Compact embedded sensors fit the bill for critical applications Industrial Embedded Systems, March 2009 By Karmjit Sidhu, American Sensor Technologies Sensor technology continues to evolve, with both the physical sensing mechanism and processing electronics making strides. This overview highlights some of the latest technology for small embedded sensors in critical applications.

		Tomorrow has not been canceled! Report from ABB Automation & Power World 2009 Mark Taft, Group Vice President, Process Automation, Global control System Business opened with, "...it is important for us to remember that tomorrow has not been canceled." Mark's point was the conference was designed to provide a great deal of useful and actionable information that will help attendees survive and thrive in the current economy, and be prepared to take advantage of the future. Mark further noted that having a combined event encompassing automation and power is timely.

		Winning Strategies and Best Practices for Sustainable Manufacturing By Bill Lydon, Contributing Editor The initial focus of the ARC Forum in Orlando was sustainable manufacturing strategies as they relate to environmental performance and resource management. Based on the recent economic downturn, the conference was expanded to address strategies for bottom line business sustainability of process and discrete manufacturing companies.

		Hitting the Sweet Spot Range of ADCs Sensors, February 2009 By Michael Harney, QSI When conditioning signals for input to ADCs there is usually a compromise between changing the gain of the signal and adding offset to ensure that the signal has the right range and common mode voltage for the ADC. Here’s how to meet the full dynamic range of an ADC (the sweet spot range) based on a given input signal, while preserving the linearity of the input signals.

		The Role of Networked Sensors Automated Buildings, February 2009 By Roland Acra, Arch Rock Networked sensors in the form of networked thermostats or ambient light sensors are critical to the benchmarking of business processes, highlighting deviations from expected optimal operation or industry-best standards, pinpointing faults that require maintenance actions, etc.

		Wireless Proves Its Value Power Engineering, February 2009 By John Blaney, Emerson Process Management Wireless field communication technologies are finding useful applications in the power industry. The low cost, reliability, security and ease-of-use of the newest wireless systems are increasing awareness of their possibilities in power plants, bringing about some innovative applications with excellent results.

		Talking Down to Machines Automation World, February 2009 By Dave Gehman What happens when top-down automation data reaches a machine controller—does it go any further? And, what happens when bottom-up data generated by the machine controller tries to move upward, past the machine controller into the automation system?

		Home Runs—Bad, When It’s Not Baseball Automation World, February 2009 By Dave Gehman A microcosm of the issues involved in tying together machines and their controllers with automation networks can be found in dedicated machine clusters, such as transfer machines in discrete manufacturing. Orchestrating dozens or hundreds of components from a range of suppliers usually takes a combination of intense engineering and brute-force controller strategies.

		Ground Loops Control Engineering, January 2009 By Peter Welander Tutorial: What causes these analog aggravations, and how to get rid of them with isolators.

		Rockwell Automation Fair 2008 Review By Bill Lydon, Contributing Editor As usual, the Rockwell Automation Fair was an impressive event with over 11,000 attendees and over 90 Encompass partners. This is a very successful show that creates enormous goodwill and is the most successful control show in North America. Training is becoming a big part of the event and allows users to justify the time and money to attend. Distributor travel packages also make it much easier for users to attend the event.

		Wireless & Networking Dominate ISA EXPO 2008, Product Highlights The emphasis on networked communications whether wired or wireless was visible at the event. We review the ISA Wireless Industrial Automation Standard (SP100) Committee meeting in Houston, which drew a standing-room-only crowd. Other product highlights include: PLC/Programming Learning Package, EtherNet/IP Controller, Single Board Industrial Controller, Remote Eyeballs for Wireless Reading Gauges, Quad Process Safety System, Universal Gas Transmitter and HMI Enhancements.

		Streamlining customized embedded system design using cost-efficient interface boards Embedded Computing Design, November 2008 By Stéphane Hauradou Manufacturers are turning to third-party PCI, PCI-X or PCI-e add-in cards as a way to deliver savings in system designs. These boards incorporate an FPGA and a set of standard interfaces such as USB, DDR, Ethernet, Flash and others while alleviating key issues in the design, production, support and maintenance and upgradability of embedded systems.

		Power over Ethernet Plus: The next step Embedded Computing Design, November 2008 By Daniel Feldman, Ethernet Alliance An upcoming improvement to the PoE standard known as Power over Ethernet Plus (PoEPlus), or IEEE P802.3at, promises to deliver more power, enabling a new breed of Ethernet devices while continuing to support IEEE 802.3af.

		Intelligent Down To The Last Meter Industrial Automation Asia, October 2008 By Klaus Ebinger, Hans Turck IO-Link integrates conventional and intelligent actuators and sensors into automation systems without extra effort and expense. Devices that currently have ‘intelligence on board’ are ideal for applications with IO-Link.

		The Evolution of Redundancy Industrial Networking, Winter 2008 By Bob Wagner To minimize downtime due to system failures most major suppliers have developed products and systems to provide redundancy in an attempt to maximize system availability. These products range from redundant power supplies and cabling schemes to redundant processor and I/O systems with automatic failover.

		Automation Insights Network By Rick Zabel, Publisher Automation Insights Network is a select group of controls and automation professionals who agree to help us cover news, emerging trends and technologies on various automation topics. Every two months, we will ask people in the Network to share their observations, knowledge and expertise with us. We take that information, distill it, and pass it on to our reporters and editors for use in future stories.

		Industrial Ethernet Growth Slowed by FUD By Bill Lydon, Contributing Editor The promise of Industrial Ethernet is clear: it will revolutionize manufacturing by tightly integrating control and business systems, if users can overcome their fear, uncertainty and doubt(FUD). One failure can trigger a cascade of problems and result in a significant loss of time and money. There are many issues surrounding the use of Ethernet in industrial control applications that give control engineers reasons for concern.

		The One Network Control, October 2008 By John Rezabek It appears that our supplier community is gearing up for a diverse spectrum of interconnection options, instead of the global standard once envisioned for IEC 61158.

		Fieldbus Goes Nuclear Control, October 2008 By David W. Spitzer Fieldbus instruments could be used in nuclear applications with appropriate qualification and testing.

		The Basics of Numerical Filtering Control Engineering, October 2008 By Vance VanDoren Control engineers use numerical filters to extract streams of valuable data from measurement noise and other extraneous information. Here’s how they work.

		Intrinsically Safe or Explosion Proof? Control Engineering, October 2008 By Jeanine Katzel Deciding how to protect a hazard involves more than assessing the application and complying with codes. It is influenced by a variety of variables and driven by habit and growing technologies such as bus networks and wireless.

		Don't Rip Out Your Legacy Network Control Engineering, October 2008 By Trevor L. Lang, HMS Industrial Networks As long as existing networks are performing as desired, it may be difficult to justify converting all sensors, controls, actuators, and related I/O modules so they can be connected to Ethernet.

		ISA - Change the name to represent the industry By Rick Zabel, Automation.com The proposed name change of ISA (to "International Society of Automation") is up for a vote again during ISA Expo in Houston, October 14-16, 2008. Last year, the change was voted down, but I have yet to hear a compelling argument against the change. And there are many reasons for the change. If ISA is truly the global society of automation professionals, then its name should reflect its cause. It's time for a change!

		PROFIBUS hits new highs, PROFINET to follow? By Bill Lydon, Contributing Editor This year's PTO General Assembly Meeting again was attended by an enthusiastic group of users, suppliers, and distributors that apply PROFIBUS and PROFINET technology. Michael Bryant, Executive Director, was master of ceremonies and forecasted PROFINET will be the leading Ethernet Technology for automation applications.

		Signal Variables Shape Wireless Industrial Networking, Summer 2008 By Don Talend infrastructure hardware and transmission frequency depend largely on transmission speed, amount of data, distance and obstructions.

		The Importance of using and choosing the correct signal isolators Control Engineering Europe, July 2008 In any measurement and control system there are several electrical interfacing problems that are likely to occur, all of which can be solved by incorporating the appropriate isolation between the signals.

		State of Manufacturing & Automation in the U.S. Looks Good Could it be that high fuel prices, the weak dollar and crises in the U.S. manufacturing industry are creating opportunities? Andy Chatha of ARC Advisory Group thinks so. He says the U.S. industry has suddenly become competitive on the world market, and companies are no longer moving operations overseas. Instead, many are expanding their facilities, and he predicts a boom in automation right here in the U.S.

		Smart-but-Simple Wireless Sensor Networking IEN, July 2008 The term smart-but-simple refers to a new generation of wireless sensor networking (WSN) products. Today, WSNs are gaining acceptance in a wide variety of industrial applications ranging from tank level to motor vibration to relief valve monitoring.

		Honeywell 2008 Users Group - Heroes Gather in Phoenix By Bill Lydon, Contributing Editor The 33rd annual Honeywell Users Group Conference was held June 15 - 19, 2008 at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, AZ with over 700 customers in attendance. According to Honeywell Vice President/General Manager, "The conferences super hero theme, Power to Perform, highlights the heroic efforts of process industry professionals to perform well despite rising costs and resource constraints."

		Solid-State Relays Enhance Reliability Control Design, June 2008 By Don Talend With the lines between solid-state relay (SSR) and programmable logic controller (PLC) capabilities blurring in recent years, SSR manufacturers see a major role for relays in maintaining equipment functions and reliability.

		Top tips on squelching electrical noise Machine Design, June 2008 By Helge Hornis and Thomas Sebastiany, Pepperl+Fuchs Industrial automation equipment must often perform reliably under some of the harshest conditions imaginable. One of the factors that make industrial conditions harsh is electronic noise pollution. Industrial devices and sensors must operate reliably in a caucophony of electromagnetic emissions both intentional and unintentional.

		Intrinsic Safety in the Digital Age Control, June 2008 By Paul Miller As fieldbus becomes the norm rather than the exception, there are many users who are demanding protection for their fieldbus networks. However, there are significant conflicts between the technique of intrinsic safety and multiple-device, multi-drop networks.

		Don't judge a supplier by its name By Frank Hurtte, Contributing Author. For those of us who live and breathe the rarified vapors of technology based automation, it's pretty hard to fathom how life existed without electronic automation. Yet, it has been a short 30 years since the venerable PLC became anything more than a novelty outside of the Big 3 in Detroit. Sometime in the late 1970s, microprocessors changed our lives forever. Since those early days, the power of these tiny chips forever changed the way we think about manufacturing.

		Safety instrumented systems: shedding light on SIL South Africa Instrumentation & Control, May 2008 By Andrew Ashton Safety engineering principles have evolved over the past decade or so from employing a relatively formulaic and prescriptive philosophy to one which involves risk assessment and risk reduction. This risk-based approach places far more responsibility on control system engineers.

		HART monitors extract data from smart instruments Plant Engineering, May 2008 By Greg Feliks, Moore Industries A simple and cost effective solution for gathering HART information is to use a HART interface device. Fortunately, HART interface devices, available from several manufacturers, make acquiring HART data a fairly simple proposition. This HART data is then made available to the control system via analog signals, discrete outputs or serial communications.

		Wireless transmits technology to new frontiers Plant Engineering, May 2008 By Darvin Kaelberer, Banner Engineering Recent innovations in radio transmission make wireless a rugged, reliable solution for demanding applications.

		Safety systems: Perfection remains an elusive goal Plant Engineering, May 2008 By Paul Gruhn, ICS Triplex Safety Instrumented System standards are performance oriented and cover cradle-to-grave activities. While most would probably argue that the standards have proven very helpful and have led to safer systems, some problems remain elusive.

		Custom Controls Survey - Complimentary assessment, tips and tricks We are conducting a brief survey on custom controls — that is, board-level controllers used in place of standard PLCs or process controls. If you use custom controls in your automation applications, please take a minute to tell us why you use them and what challenges you face. You may be eligible to receive a complimentary controls assessment, plus tips and tricks on how to lower your control costs.

		Regional Manufacturing Expos Prove Most Valuable By Thomas R. Cutler Deciding which conferences, webinars, and expos are worthwhile for manufacturing engineers and buyers to attend often feels like a dangerous yellow brick road, never knowing quite what to expect.

		Bit-level Buses Compete on Speed, Connectivity Automation World, May 2008 By C. Kenna Amos Down in the lower levels of the seven-layer International Organization for Standardization’s (www.iso.ch) Open System Interconnection Reference Model, two bit-level buses compete to control devices such as actuators and sensors: the Actuator Sensor Interface (AS-I) and CompoNet.

		Do You Really Need that Separate Safety Network? Automation World, May 2008 By James R. Koelsch Why install the latest generation of safety networks? Most people would put the money saved on less wiring at the top of their list of answers.

		Digital Data Acquisition and Analysis Sensors, May 2008 By Strether Smith A Digital data acquisition/recording system is the fundamental component of almost every experiment performed today. The success of the experiment is entirely dependent on the capabilities of the system and it is almost universally assumed that it will provide the correct answer. Unfortunately, life is not so simple.

		Enabling seamless WiMAX fabric Test & Measurement World, May 2008 By Ron Wilson and Rick Nelson WiMAX stands poised to extend coverage in PC networking and mobile phone communications as semiconductor makers roll out WiMAX chipsets and as test-equipment vendors offer the lab instrumentation and production ATE systems necessary to test the chipsets and the products they populate.

		Make the most of WirelessHART Chemical Processing, May 2008 By Gareth Johnston and Alan Munns, ABB HART 7 gives plants a real incentive to consider wireless. Authors examine the advantages and typical applications of a wireless instrument network, whether now is the right time to consider a wireless project, and how a WirelessHART instrument network works.

		What’s needed in process automation? Chemical Processing, May 2008 By Mark Rosenzweig A recent survey of end users by Jacobs Engineering Group provides an extensive wish list for field instrumentation, including disposable instrumentation for disposable process components; Class 1 Division 1-rated I/O modules; power-over-Ethernet instruments; and built-in control module logic, including alarming. Wish lists also cover controllers, HMI, control systems, batch, and more.

		ABB is powered up and running at high efficiency! By Bill Lydon The products and services shown at ABB Automation World in Houston, Texas along with the enthusiasm of the ABB employees and users would seem to explain why the company’s 1st quarter 2008 earnings beat investment analysts’ consensus by over 40%. The three-day trade show and conference ran from April 29 through May 1 in Houston, Texas. There was a great deal of energy and enthusiasm at the event which showcased ABB products, ABB services, partner products, and over 300 workshops/training sessions.

		Safety Sensors Rise to New Heights Control Engineering, May 2008 By Mark T. Hoske An integrated safety system, like any control system, contains sensors, logic, and actuation, with I/O connections, networks, and software to tie it altogether. As connected sensors advance in functionality and fall in cost, redundancy and fail-safe designs reduce risk.

		Wireless: Bluetooth vs. Bluetooth Control Engineering Europe, May 2008 Most industrial applications require more than a standard Bluetooth wireless solution. Looking at traditional Bluetooth technology versus industrial Bluetooth technology can illustrate necessities for tough industrial applications.

		Put Your Coat On Assembly, April 2008 By Bill Boyd Conformal coatings do more than just keep electronic products dry. These polymer coatings strengthen delicate components and leads and support small devices that can’t be mechanically secured. Because they are electrically insulative, conformal coatings prevent current leakage and inhibit arcing.

		Loggers Keep Feeding Data-Hungry Users Control, April 2008 By Jim Montague Recorders and DAQs have survived the advent of PCs, adapted to cooperate with software-based historians, and continue to serve in applications where computers can't go

		The Pluses and Pitfalls of USB DAQ IEN, March 2008 By Jonathan Tucker, Keithley Instruments With all the benefits of USB come a few hidden hazards, which, if unchecked, can lead to inaccurate measurement results. Being aware of the hazards can help prevent problems.

		Best practices for process instrumentation cabling Intech, March 2008 Proper electrical installation and connectivity of field instrumentation devices glues the entire PAS system together, involves cabling, grounding, cable routing, and mitigation of external influences such as noise and interference.

		Going the (Short) Distance With Wireless Machine Design, February 2008 By Darvin Kaelberer, Banner Engineering Wireless technology, which is frequently used in factories and other industrial settings where I/O must be sent from a remote area to an operator located several miles away, can also make sense if data only has to travel a few feet.

		Three’s a Crowd for Instrumentation Amplifiers Sensors, February 2008 By Prashanth Holenarsipur, Maxim Integrated Products This article explains the architectural limitations of conventional three op amp IAs, and introduces an indirect current-feedback circuit topology that provides specific advantages for single-supply operation.

		Isolate the noise, not the signal Plant Engineering, February 2008 By Greg Feliks, Moore Industries Some engineers think that the need for isolators and signal converters is eroding with the advent of smart instruments, isolated electronics and digital fieldbuses. However, isolators and signal converters can also be used to solve difficult or complex problems.

		Safety Instrumented System design is all about the process Plant Engineering, February 2008 By Charles M. Fialkowski, Siemens Energy & Automation Designing a single component may be viewed as a relatively simple matter – one that a single person can handle. Designing a large SIS, however, is typically beyond the ability of any single individual. Large systems require a multi-discipline team.

		Distributed I/O systems create islands of automation Plant Engineering, February 2008 By Tim Roberts, Schneider Electric The latest distributed I/O systems are open, modular systems that make it possible to connect motor starters, variable speed drives, operator interface terminals, encoders and other third-party products across networks and fieldbuses.

		Relays Take on Controller Functions Control Design, February 2008 By Loren Shaum Relays can perform machine control and safety tasks, and the line between controllers and relays is becoming a gray area.

		Absolute Noise Corrupts Absolutely Control Design, February 2008 By Mike Bacidore Since most wiring is fixed in place, varying currents are the usual cause of magnetic coupling. A good design rejects as much noise as possible.

		Suppress Those Surges Design News, February 2008 By Jon Titus In addition to protecting exterior sensor and communication lines from transient pulses caused by nearby lightning strikes, you should protect inside equipment from transients or surges that can travel through power lines.

		Embedded RFID: 'RFID as a Feature' Design News, February 2008 By Martin Payne It's likely that in the near future, most products we buy will include RFID. Embedded RFID applications can enable innovations in a wide range of industries including aerospace, chemical, hospitality, health care and retail.

		Designing for Robotics Design News, February 2008 By Kamran Shah, National Instruments Robot engineers have to interface with the right sensors and actuators. These could include analog input and output, digital lines, GPS sensors, LIDARs, cameras, motors and CAN interfaces for vehicles. This makes software a key component of any robotic system.

		Potential Power Picks Control Engineering, February 2008 By C.G. Masi Power options for embedded systems are as varied as the applications they serve. Mixing and matching these available power sources for primary, recharge, and backup duty gives embedded system designers a wide range of options to power their creations. Here’s a tutorial on the choices.

		Relays: Far from Dead Control Engineering, February 2008 David C. Thomas, Tyco Electronics The traditional socket mounted, electromechanical relay, often based on designs that are several decades old, is still a highly effective solution to load-switching problems in industrial and commercial applications.

		On-Machine Controls Control Engineering, February 2008 By C.G. Masi Automation vendors have begun to reverse the trend away from on-machine controls by introducing ruggedized industrial electronics packages that make it possible to move controls back onto machines.

		GPS Synchronization Architecture for DSA Devices By National Instruments GPS synchronization enables measurement systems to make synchronized measurements over extremely large areas. GPS provides a method of sharing timing signals without the need of running timing cables to each measurement system. This article shows how to do it.

		Going Wireless is More Than Just Eliminating Cables American Machinist, January 2008 There are three significant problems with gathering shop floor data: First is that it can increase labor costs; second, implementing an automated data capture system is often difficult and expensive; third, a system you implement today may not meet tomorrow’s needs.

		Signal Conditioning for PC-Based Control Control Engineering, January 2008 By C.G. Masi Control-system designers need to pay extra attention to signal conditioning issues when using PC-based controllers. PACs and PLCs don’t have the same problems.

		Eliminating non-repeatable errors Motion System Design, January 2008 Repeatable error is easy to accommodate and correct. But speed changes and servo-system bandwidth issues sometimes cause non-repeatable error in automated systems.

		Striking at the heart of condition assessment Power Engineering International, December 2007 By: Dave Randl, QinetiQ, UK Remote visual inspections of machinery and pipework have always had limitations because of the inherent inflexibility of fibrescopes and videoscopes. The unique articulation of a guide now opens up the possibility of navigation through areas not previously possible, allowing a more comprehensive plant condition assessment.

		Remote monitoring closes the gap between meters and breakers Plant Engineering, January 2008 By Jack Smith Remote monitoring helps plant managers make informed decisions about operational efficiency, system reliability, employee safety and energy costs.

		Process control: Managing the modernization process Plant Engineering, January 2008 By Jack Smith When process industries face control system modernization, they also face inevitable decision opportunities. Changes can range from simple component replacements to a full-blown overhaul.

		Isolator and signal converter basics, Part 1 Plant Engineering, December 2007 By Greg Feliks, Moore Industries Isolators are useful devices to solve instrumentation problems in process control applications. However, be sure to check the specs carefully. Not all isolators are created equal. Isolators can be used for many applications in process control beyond just eliminating ground loops and conditioning signals

		Advanced applications for isolators and signal converters, Part 2 Plant Engineering, December 2007 By Greg Feliks, Moore Industries a selection of advanced applications for isolators and signal converters, including HART, digital converters, signal conversion, VFD noise, AC current/voltage conversion and isolation and Hazardous area isolation.

		Put Lightning in the Ground Design News, January 2008 By Jon Titus, Contributing Editor Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a direct strike to turn expensive instruments or sensors into junk. Lightning within a few kilometers of equipment can induce destructive voltages and currents on conductors. You can do a quick cost-benefit analysis to determine what to protect and how to protect it.

		Improving Analog Circuits Design News, June 2007 By Hae-Seung Lee, professor, MIT Microsystems Technology Labs With MIT’s new analog circuits, power consumption is a lot less. They eliminated the need for op-amps. Instead, they provide the same functionality by using comparators or zero-crossing detectors. Prototypes are built for A/D converters, but they can also be applied to amplifiers, filters or delta sigma modulators.

		What's a TDC, Anyway? Design News, June 2007 By Jon Titus, Contributing Editor A time-to-digital converter (TDC) charges a capacitor for the unknown period you want to measure (t1 to t2) and, at the end of that charging period, you quickly measure the circuit's output voltage.

		Condition Monitoring Gets Sophisticated Control Engineering, June 2007 By Peter Cleaveland New ways to gather information, including wireless, plus integration of information from top to bottom is helping users cut costs and avoid costly downtime.

		FIR Filters Fly Design News, May 2007 By Jon Titus, Contributing Editor A FIR filter works much like a moving average. The FIR filter first applies a coefficient to each data point. Raw data, say from an analog-to-digital converter, flows through an FIR filter that multiplies each value by a coefficient and then sums the results to produce a new value.

		LTF Technology Simplifies Light Sensing Control Engineering, June 2007 By Ray King, TAOS What is a light-to-frequency converter and how does it work?

		Mix-and-match machine safety Control Design, May 2007 By Dan Hebert, Senior Technical Editor A practical look at the convergence of safety-related devices and networks with their machine control counterparts.

		Users fear wireless networks for control Intech, May 2007 By Dick Caro Here is an item-by-item rebuttal of plant engineer’s vow: “Critical data will never transmit over a wireless link in my plant.” Fear and loathing on the technology trail.

		Using RDMA to increase processing performance Embedded Computing Design By William Lee, Mellanox Technologies Applications are increasing the demand for CPU processing performance and the amount of data being transferred between subsystems. Offloading data movement to I/O hardware increases the amount of CPU resources available for these applications, boosting the system’s performance.

		Choosing the Right Industrial Wireless Network The decision to implement wireless technology in your industrial facility is a strategic choice, enabling an infrastructure that will provide significant benefits for your company beyond avoiding the wiring costs. The right decision will help improve safety, optimize the plant and ensure compliance.

		Changes in temperature can cause subtle errors in LVDT readings Machine Design, May 2007 By Harold Schaevitz, Macro Sensors Changes in temperature can cause subtle errors in LVDT readings.

		Eye on Hazardous Area Sensors Control Engineering, May 2007 By Jeanine Katzel, Control Engineering Increasing use and advancing technologies in an ever-shrinking global environment are changing the focus of these critical process control devices.

		Are wireless sensors ready for me? Control Design, May 2007 A reader wants to know what his best options are for reliable, and easily connectable wireless sensors for vibration monitoring, temperature and presence sensing. Various experts answer.

		The Sensor Web: A Distributed, Wireless Monitoring System Sensors, April 2007 By: Kevin A. Delin, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Sensor Web is a distributed sensing system in which information is globally shared and used by all networked platforms. It's already been deployed long term in different environments and is opening up new avenues for distributed sensing and control.

		SIL 3-rated relays: The new accepted industry practice Plant Engineering, April 2007 By Mike Garrick, Phoenix Contact Accepted industry practice for process safety applications has been the use of standard relays in redundant or triplicate configurations to achieve 'safe’ standard relay functionality.

		Modular manufacturing steers machine control choices Control Design, April 2007 By Loren Shaum, Contributing Editor To improve flexibility, machine builders are incorporating more distributed control and remote I/O. This article focuses on machines with multiple stations.

		Why Use Temperature Transmitters Instead of Direct Wiring? By Gary Prentice, Moore Industries-International Today's highly functional microprocessor-based field-mount temperature transmitters are comparable in price to direct wiring strategies. When the additional advantages of using intelligent transmitters are factored in, you can save considerable time and avoid maintenance headaches. This is especially true when the measurement point is located a long distance from the readout and control system.

		Wireless Technology is Ready for Industrial Use By Gary Mathur, Moore Industries-International, Inc. Wireless works in a plant, but you'll want to be careful regarding which "flavor" you choose. There are many flavors of wireless, and an understanding is needed to determine the best solution for any particular application. Wireless can be licensed or unlicensed, Ethernet or serial interface, narrow band or spread spectrum, secure or open protocol,Wi-Fi…the list goes on. This article provides an introduction to this powerful technology.

		The hard choices of integration include decisions of how to connect proprietary systems By Jim Hammond and Larry Castelli The interconnection and integration of existing heterogeneous sub-networks into a homogeneous network has always presented challenges. Evolving and converging protocol standards along with emerging multi-protocol components suggest a clear understanding of the problems and solutions has never been more important. These concerns include reliability, redundancy, robustness, and security.

		The intrinsically safe fieldbus has arrived By Dr. Dave Rizzo The capacity barrier of FISCO has now been significantly surpassed by a novel split architecture design that has already proven itself in the field. For plants that process chemicals, pharmaceuticals, petroleum and other products whose production may involve hazardous environments, it appears that recent technological improvements in split architecture systems design have finally delivered what FISCO promised: intrinsically-safe segment capacity virtually indistinguishable from non-hazardous fieldbus implementations.

		Reaping the Rewards of a Remote Monitoring and Diagnostics Program As today’s manufacturers continue to seek new methods and tools that can enable them to do more with less, many leading-edge companies are turning to innovative monitoring and diagnostics tools that can dramatically enhance and improve a company’s existing Maintenance, Repair and Operation (MRO) programs. Often referred to as “remote monitoring and diagnostic systems,” such technologies can help companies cut overall production costs, improve quality, minimize downtime and increase operational efficiency.

		On-Machine™ - On the Cutting Edge of Automation With the current squeeze on capital investments, companies are searching for ways to lower the cost of installing and maintaining automation systems. As a means to this end, they’re finding that moving industrial controls and hardware closer to the application or directly onto the machine saves considerable time and money. This paper examines the scope of On-Machine™ solutions, outlines the key benefits of this growing trend and highlights examples where a distributed, On-Machine architecture has been successful.

		Using High-Reliability Digital I/O By National Instruments White paper describes the operation of High-Reliability Digital I/O, demonstrates the features in typical scenarios, and illustrates how to program the features in LabVIEW.

		Isolation Technologies for Reliable Industrial Measurements Voltage, current, temperature, pressure, strain, and flow measurements are an integral part of industrial and process control applications. Often these applications involve environments with hazardous voltages, transient signals, common-mode voltages, and fluctuating ground potentials capable of damaging measurement systems and ruining measurement accuracy. To overcome these challenges, measurement systems designed for industrial applications make use of electrical isolation. This white paper focuses on isolation for analog measurements, provides answers to common isolation questions, and includes information on different isolation implementation technologies.

		Distributed I/O: The Future Of I/O By: A-B Journal Staff Increased integration, technology migration, and distributed solutions are driving I/O to become more integrated and flexible. This evolution continues as manufacturers demand smaller, faster, and easier to install control systems. The I/O industry is transforming the appearance and function of I/O devices on the factory floor to meet these needs. Among the most noteworthy changes are collapsing architectures, smart devices, intelligent I/O and packaged controllers, and smaller size.

		The Future of Industrial I/O By: Jim Lamberson, Sensoray Company Inc I/O implementation strategies in our automated world: some are newer and others are, for the most part, remnants from an earlier technology era. Aside from the legacy aspect, why do so many I/O implementation strategies exist? Because every strategy has both strengths and shortcomings. This article examines the various I/O strategies and concludes that Ethernet I/O is the future.

Automation.com Real-time Information for the Automation Professional May. 25, 2012

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