Articles and News

By Jan Pingel & Matthew Burd, Honeywell Process Solutions One of the most important characteristics of a connected plant is the ability to increase and enhance collaboration to help solve previously unsolvable problems. The emergence of the cloud-based historian is a key component, therefore, to bringing the connected plant to life because it greatly enables this type of collaboration.

Mr. van Vuuren has been certified as a Certified Licensing Professional, and is currently in charge of service sales in the EMEA and APAC regions for Silicon Valley-based Harmonic, and will be a valuable asset in assisting Skkynet with complex partnership and sales negotiations.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation The combination of data from multiple platforms is now possible because of the OPC UA protocol - an in-demand feature - as the Internet of Things (IoT) gains traction. This article discusses how the open source protocol OPC UA is beneficial for automation.

Comtrol’s IO-Link Masters are available in three industrial Ethernet protocols: EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP and PROFINET IO, which are all capable of running OPC UA with MultiLink.

The April 2017 event was a part of a regular schedule of interoperability events. It featured more than 20 devices from 13 different suppliers. These events provide ISA100 WCI member organizations an opportunity to validate the ISA100 Wireless brand promise of assured interoperability.

Kepware and Microsoft’s industrial IoT solutions integrate with the help of OPC UA. KEPServerEX can move industrial control data to the Azure cloud platform by utilizing both OPC UA and MQTT via the Azure IoT Gateway SDK and Azure IoT Hub.

By Alex West, IHS Markit Overall, a number of themes could be discerned at HANNOVER MESSE this year, including cost-cutting, production efficiency, downtime reduction, quicker time-to-market, product customization, and lower development costs.

An enhanced PID controller simplifies tuning and improves loop stability and reliability for loops dominated by discontinuous measurement updates.

Learn how to document “one-sided” calibrations, such as pH/ORP and gas sensors/analyzers. The approach can apply to meters, DCS and PLC inputs.

The specification provides device manufacturers with an official foundation to implement EtherCAT P technology, which enables data and power transmission on a single, standard cable.

The OPC Foundation European Certification lab has successfully been accredited and the first successful certified product was a Siemens RFID reader.

Microsoft has provided, in conjunction with the OPC Foundation, an set of sample applications, inclusive of reference clients, reference servers, an aggregation server, an OPC classic wrapper and a web application to quickly display OPC UA telemetry data sent to the cloud.

Logical & careful planning of loop testing strategies results in improved control performance without compromising plant quality, reliability, or safety.

Exosite’s combination of Murano and Exchange was designed to help industrial manufacturers like Parker develop a centralized approach to IoT implementation that focuses on standardization, reuse and internal collaboration.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com We've received a number of comments and questions from vendors about The Open Group's effort to push for open process automation standards. Tn the aim of encouraging more discussion on the topic, we're sharing some of these questions in order to provide some more clarity on its importance.

The target is to offer TSN as firmware upgrade to the users of netX technologies. Hilscher developed a firmware upgrade for TSN which can turn a standard real-time ethernet device into a TSN enabled device.

With the integration of the OPC Unified Architecture Standard (OPC UA) into operation and control systems, both existing machines and new designs can be made IoT ready, and so can be integrated into the Smart Factory environment.

Wireless technology has gained rapid acceptance in many industrial sectors because of its cost effectiveness, reliability, fast deployment, and flexibility.

Products from both companies will be showcased, demonstrating how to integrate and deliver edge computing applications and connect real-world signals and industrial “things” to the digital world of information technology, mobile, and cloud computing.

Wi-FAR supports line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight broadband services at distances up to 30 km, enabling deployment of middle- and last-mile solutions to regional, rural and remote areas. TV white space can also support a range of current and emerging infrastructure applications, including machine-to-machine communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Grid deployment, industrial automation and homeland security.