Articles and News

By installing wired and wireless Korenix industrial Ethernet switches in 22 of its trackside railway stations and 96 field level sites, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway eliminated the risk of broadcast storms on its monitoring and control system network.

Emerson will supply an Ovation control system, AMS Suite predictive maintenance software, valves and smart wireless instrumentation to the waste- and biomass-fed power station at Morcenx in southwestern France.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The umbrella theme of the 2013 event was “Integrated Industry” that encompassed technology, cooperation and collaboration across corporate and sector boundaries. The Integrated Industry theme has become important with the continuing integration of mechanical design, embedded automation/control, business system integration, and machine–to-machine (M2M) communications technologies.

Beckhoff Automation relocated to Savage, Minnesota where the company has constructed a modern business complex with over 44,500 square feet.

The free tool allows a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the data traffic in sercos III networks, easing development, testing and troubleshooting.

KW Software of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is the 50th PI Competence Center (PICC) for PROFIBUS and PROFINET.

The ION SA5600-SAL is a security appliance with an embedded Avaya Secure Access Link (SAL) Gateway that provides IP and secure dial-up connectivity to Avaya and heritage Nortel systems.

The FDT Group will develop an annex to the FDT2 specification for users of EtherNet/IP, DeviceNet, CompoNet and ControlNet.

Based on ODVA’s industrial EtherNet/IP, the results of this initiative will provide end users with more choices to deploy a complete Ethernet solution for process automation starting with connectivity down to the field level.

The SIG will develop standards for the exchange of information between machines, and between machines and supervisory systems using EtherNet/IP and CIP, sercos III and/or OPC UA, whenever possible.

MDIS selected OPC UA as the Master Control System (MCS) and Distributed Control System (DCS) protocol standard for offshore oil and gas production.

At the request of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), representatives from the Automation Federation participated in the first NIST meeting for developing a national cybersecurity program called for by President Barack Obama.

Oldham specializes in providing safety, gas and fire detection systems.

Wibu-Systems, a supplier of security solutions, joined the OPC Foundation as a new active member.

16 Rotork IQ40 actuators, one Pakscan P3 wireless master station and three network repeaters are used to control six 100,000 barrel tanks and four booster pumps at Martin Midstream Partners tank farm in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Development of a Virtual Linearizer for Correcting Transducer Static Nonlinearity

sercos international participated in four events in four countries in four weeks world-wide in March 2013.

ZigBee IP for an IPv6-based full wireless mesh networking solution provides seamless Internet connections to control low-power, low-cost devices.

Installation of five Smart Wireless networks and more than 100 wireless measurement devices has increased visibility into the process, enabling the plant to improve control and run closer to its capacity.

The PROFIBUS Tester identified potential, covert failure nuisances within the PROFIBUS network before DCS commissioning started, reducing the overall time needed for commissioning the DCS by about 25%.