Articles and News

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.

The standard SmartMesh IP Evaluation Kit provides everything needed to demonstrate mesh network performance, data monitoring, digital actuation, and event notification.

Apprion conducted an on-site survey, which included RF spectrum analysis, various grid simulation output with signal power levels and a technical evaluation of the site’s infrastructure.

By Adrienne Lutovsky, ProSoft Technology Questions regarding security, reliability and capacity of wireless continue to prevent conservative end users from reaping its benefits. Can these be overcome?

Automation.com, May 2011 By Dr. Christine Eckert SZST Salzgitter Service und Technik GmbH thoroughly tested Trebing + Himstedt’s TH SCOPE unified diagnostics solution at a SIL-based installation in a steel mill.

DNP3 protocol was originally developed for interoperability between substation computers and RTUs but is now also widely used in the water/wastewater, transportation and oil/gas industries.

EnOcean Alliance announced that its wireless, battery-less energy harvesting sensors and associated control systems are now fully interoperable with TCP/IP.

Automation.com, April 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Energy has become a hot topic with vendors and standards organizations, many of which are offering and creating solutions for energy users.

Automation.com, April 2011 By Roy Kok How did Scotty know? How do you know when your systems are normal? Are the Dilithium crystals at their proper temperature and vibrational frequency for this Warp Speed and area of space? Could he be sure he caught every last Tribble, and none are blocking the cooling ducts to the Anti- Matter Drive?

Nivis wireless products passed a series of in-depth tests as specified by the Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program (CAVP), a program established by NIST and executed by third-party laboratories.

By Eric Byres, Byres Security, and Darek Kominek, MatrikonOPC White Paper explains the security advantages of limiting network interfaces and protocols, and recommends using OPC as a communications standard because of its ease of use and its widespread deployment. Registration required to view paper.

Bernick's Beverages & Vending installed Toshiba IP cameras, network, and software to monitor its distribution center and offices.

Advantech selected the Innovasic RapID Platform and fido1100 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solution to provide EtherNet/IP connectivity in their ADAM-6100 Ethernet I/O modules.

February U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $329.43 million. With a year-to-date total of $699.16 million, 2011 is up 138.1% compared with 2010.

The driver software is available for download in C# source code without any license fees or usage limitations.

Rosemount wireless flow and pressure transmitters on two new storage tanks monitor water usage at GlaxoSmithKline's Cork plant in Ireland.

Radius will install FastNet RTU and PDR VHF Data radios as part of a rainwater drainage SCADA system for pumping stations in the cities of Al Dammam and Al Khobar.

Sensor Technology in the UK is developing technology to ensure safety when excited performers and heavy machinery share the same stage.

Keith Garris and Christina Jones have joined the company to cover the East and West coast regions, respectively.

This Ethernet technology will be featured in TI’s upcoming Sitara ARM microprocessors (MPUs) planned for the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2011.