Fieldbus Foundation, the HART Communication Foundation (HCF) and PI have joined forces to create a common architecture for a WirelessHART gateway device. Cooperation on this architecture is an extension of the three organizations' successful collaboration on Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) and is another step towards delivering open systems to process industry end users. The specification enables anyone to design and build gateway products.
The gateway allows a WirelessHART mesh network to communicate with a host via the Fieldbus Foundation's HSE protocol, PROFIBUS and PROFINET. I/O mapping and the use of DD files are consistent among these protocols. The diagram shows how data from a wireless mesh sensor network could be integrated into a host automation system. The collection of sensors is configured as a mesh, so devices can communicate directly, or route messages through another sensor if the primary path becomes blocked.
