Articles and News

PROFIBUS is number one but PROFINET and EtherNet/IP are catching up.

Netilities graphical software tool is useful for engineering, monitoring and troubleshooting PROFINET installations.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Internet of Things (IoT) definition as promoted by major industrial automation suppliers and computer industry suppliers is “IP to the edge.” IP to the edge means using Internet Protocol over wired or wireless Ethernet to communicate with end devices. This concept may not be common sense engineering and sound design for industrial automation systems.

By Rainer Schmidt, Harting PROFINET is an independent, proprietary system, which is primarily used for communication between PROFINET components. If PROFINET wants to seamlessly communicate right into the SAP level, it runs into the structured cabling which the IT infrastructure of the company uses.

FDI Cooperation, FieldComm Group and Profibus & Profinet International gave FDI to the FieldComm Group.

The RapID Platform with the fido5000 REM Switch chip has been certified to PROFINET v2.31 for Class B and Class C devices.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Iron Bridge plant was originally built in the 1980s to treat about 5 million gallons of wastewater per day. After several modifications and upgrades, it can now treat and reclaim up to 40 million gallons in that same 24-hour period. The facilities standardized on Siemens controls, drives, power distribution, and Profibus and PROFINET communications network.

Moxa received Class 1, Div. 2 certification from UL for its EDR-810 industrial multiport router, qualifying it for safe use in oil and gas refineries, offshore platforms, fueling stations, and other areas containing volatile liquids, gases or vapors.

In 1999, Wolfgang Seel founded the company and initially developed microchips for the PROFIBUS system – one of the most important bus systems in the automation industry.

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

Sightsys provides stacks, libraries, tools and services for CANopen, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT and POWERLINK.

The product portfolio that Softing Industrial Automation acquired includes solutions for monitoring industrial networks, incljuding PROFIBUS, PROFINET and Industrial Ethernet.

“Industrial Ethernet Technologies: Overview and Comparison” gives valuable insight into today’s most important Industrial Ethernet technologies.

Ken Hoover is President of Softing North America.

Deutschmann attained certification to the current PROFINET 2.2 and GSDML 2.25 specifications for the UNIGATE IC and UNIGATE CL series.

Softing's PROFINET device implementation has passed the Class III category of the "Net Load Test" performed by PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI).

PROFINEWS App lets users receive up-to-date information about PI and its technologies directly on their devices anytime, anywhere in the world.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Four North American members presented why they support PI standards and are members of the board. User presentations further highlighted that existing plants have many types of networks that can benefit from efficient gateways and proxies to further enhance automation with new controls and instruments.

By Bill Lydon, Editor While industrial Ethernet is being adopted at a high rate, the majority of connected nodes (73%) are still traditional networks like DeviceNet, PROFIBUS, Modbus, SERCOS, Foundation Fieldbus, ASi, and others. In order to gain a clearer understanding of the trends, I spoke with Tom Moore, Research Analyst at IHS's Electronics and Media Group.

With IXXAT Safe, HMS offers a product family under the IXXAT brand for fast, cost-effective implementation of safe communications solutions for Profinet and Ethernet/IP.