Articles and News

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 visions, which includes connecting people and services, leverages open communications, like OPC UA, and embedded-to-enterprise computing.

By Mike Hannah, Rockwell Automation Forecasts say that industrial automation will make up the majority of the Internet of Things by 2025, and Internet Protocol (IP)-addressable devices are the key enabling force that will get industry there.

The EnOcean Alliance defined a unified specification for remote commissioning of energy harvesting wireless devices in building automation systems.

By Bob Voss, Panduit Industries are rapidly adopting wireless networks because of their many benefits on the plant floor, including convenience, mobility, reduced cabling and lower labor costs compared to wired networks. Here are four steps to help plant operators establish wireless zones on the plant floor effectively.

Both a PROFIBUS forum and a PROFINET forum are available to the general public to ask questions and seek answers.

The free web-based seminars cover technical topics such as Sercos communication mechanisms, easy machine commissioning and the functionality of redundancy.

Agiliad specializes in industrial and medical product and software engineering and design services and offers turnkey solutions involving complex electronics and software design.

Founded in 1939, Riken Keiki has been specializing in developing gas detection and monitoring solutions to help ensure safety in industrial sites for almost a decade.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Communication technology is taking a role in strengthening U.S. manufacturing. Tom Bianculli, Motorola Solutions’ Senior Director of Emerging Business, talks about the type of technological advances that will improve operations on the manufacturing floor.

Sercos hosted 25 technology and automation vendors and end users to its 13th PlugFest on May 7 and 8 at the Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

By installing the eWON VPN routers and Talk2M Internet-based remote access system, Aquatic Engineering & Construction is able to monitor and quickly resolve issues on its heavy-duty tensioner equipment, located onboard remote marine vessels.

The first official certificate for a successfully tested EtherCAT device was issued not long after the new North American EtherCAT Test Center was accredited by the ETG.

Founded in 1989, Online Development Inc. (OLDI) designs and manufactures factory automation products to help customers simplify data transfer, control and communications tasks.

The OPC Foundation Test Lab in Scottsdale, AZ certified TeslaSCADA, a SCADA solution for smart phones and other Android devices.

Various wireless topologies can be employed to meet the demands of industrial wireless applications, including star, tree, mesh, and cluster.

The integration of wireless technology into products that were previously wired has caused a steady shift in electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) test services.

With aging substations, a risk of blackouts and increasingly higher maintenance costs, GSE installed a remote monitoring systems based on wireless sensor networks.

Swiss based u-blox acquired Swedish connectBlue, a provider of industrial-grade short range radio modules.

By Brian Roth, Antaira Technologies Wireless networks are typically setup as an access point, bridge or client combination. The major difference is the access point allows multiple individual wireless devices to connect to the access point. A wireless bridge is used to link a smaller network of devices to the main network through a single wireless connection.

GAMBICA says the telecommunications industry wrote a standard where key wireless devices can never be relied upon to report their alarm or status messages in a timely fashion. This restriction is likely to make Europe lose significant competitive ground in the industrial wireless field.