May 2011
Hannover Fair provides a unique event to directly see a wide range of automation technology, its application on a wide range of equipment, and the opportunity to talk with users. The level of engineering and manufacturing knowhow and skill incorporated into products at the event is world class.
The size of Hannover Fair can be overwhelming but there were industry and technology trends reflected in products and presentations at the event. I am using some specific examples for illustration and in most cases there are many more companies that have products supporting these trends.
The integration of multiple functions into devices continues to increase with mechatronics becoming more commonplace. There were products from a number of vendors that continue to integrate complete controllers into drives and servos.
A great demonstration of the integration pushing the design and implementation envelope was the FESTO SmartBird. FESTO developed the SmartBirds to learn from bionics. The birds were designed using a high degree of integration including power supply, control, motion control, motion feedback, diagnostic feedback, and wireless communications. The design pushes the envelope of what is possible and FESTO claims that while analyzing the SmartBird's flow characteristics during the course of its development, they have acquired additional knowledge for the optimization of its product solutions.
The bionic SmartBirds, inspired by the herring gull, can start, fly and land autonomously. Consistent with the Hannover Fair themes, the SmartBirds are extremely lightweight for efficiency in resource and energy consumption.
The greater integration of functions is driving the development of integrated controllers on a chip and enabling a higher degree of functionality to be embedded in end devices including sensors and actuators. The application of single chip processors incorporating Ethernet and/or CAN communications has become widespread with developers. In many cases, these platforms come complete with a real-time operating system that support, email, WEB servers, WEB services and other functions. These single chip platforms make it easy to create embedded industrial controllers. The result, over time, will be a more distributed system architecture where PLC and Process controllers will be less involved in control.
These chip offerings should accelerate the embedding of more control functions into a range of automation devices including drives, pneumatics, hydraulics, vision, and robot controls.
Texas Instruments announced that it is licensing EtherCAT for its ARM based embedded processors starting with the upcoming Sitara ARM microprocessors planned for the fourth quarter of 2011. Other processor platforms will incorporate EtherCAT beginning in 2012. The Texas Instruments Sitara ARM Microprocessor supports serial, CAN, USB, and 10/100 Mbit Ethernet communications, providing a platform for real-time control and communications on a single chip.
Other companies with offerings of chips that deliver protocols include:
- B&R POWERLINK FPGA
- HMS Anybus-IC family
- Phoenix Contact PROFINET IO Device Chip
- Siemens PROFINET ERTEC 200/400
The industry has multiple open standard protocols so there seems to be a diversity of needs served by the various standards (Profibus, PROFINET, DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP, AS-i, etc.) These were all displayed at Hannover Fair.
The development of software that amplifies engineering time and knowledge is accelerating and may be the most important trend that helps enable the creation of more complex applications and increases the productivity of precious engineering resources.
Prof. Dr. Siegfried Russwurm, Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG CEO Sector Industry, gave a presentation at Hannover Fair discussing these opportunities and what they mean to Siemens. He noted that through the use of software, product design and production planning will run in parallel in the future. The big paradigm shift is being accelerated with PLM software where real and digital worlds of manufacturing are converging.
More Information:
- Machine design software generates open source Mechatronics program code
- PLCopen XML Standard Update
- Mechatronics Concept Designer
- Siemens PLM
EPLAN demonstrated electrical design software that improves engineering, project efficiency, and systemizes knowledge.
The OPC Foundation booth illustrated the unifying capabilities of the OPC UA standard to connect information from sensor to enterprise using WEB services. APAT, Indusoft, Kepware, MatrikonOPC, Prediktor, Siemens, SAP, Unified Automation, and CAS demonstrated OPC UA capabilities in the Hannover booth. These vendors demonstrated a range of OPC UA capabilities from embedded OPC UA to enterprise connectivity. OPC UA is being implemented in embedded field devices, process control systems, programmable logic controllers, gateways, operator panels.
The computer industry has been integrating WEB services for some time now to unite data from various sources in an effort to improve operations and achieve more accurate decision support. These integrations issues need to addressed and they exemplify why I believe OPC UA is quickly gaining momentum and collaborating with a number of organizations including PLCopen, ISA-95, ISA-88, MTConnect, Field Device Integration, EDDL, and FDT. The OPC Unified Architecture enables secure, reliable and vendor-neutral transport of raw data and pre-processed information from the manufacturing level into the enterprise. This function is independent of the manufacturer from which the applications originate, the programming language in which they were developed or the operating system on which they are used.
OPC UA activity is accelerating. An OPC day event will be held in Waldorf Germany on May 25, 2011, hosted by SAP. There is also an active OPC group in China.
- OPC PLCopen Cooperation
- Integrated Controls & WEB Services Standard: OPC UA Information Model for IEC 61131-3 Update
- OPC UA Redefines Automation Architectures
- OPC UA is Frictionless Bridge to New Automation Architecture
- OPC UA Overview
- OPC UA Security
- OPC Unified Architecture Collaboration Overview
If you have feedback regarding major industry trends I would be pleased to get your thoughts and publish them. (Use the "Feedback" link below.)