Articles and News

The PROFI Interface Center (PIC) built a display wall of PROFINET devices they have tested and certified.

By Bill Lydon, Editor As Industrial Ethernet protocols have proliferated on the factory floor, IP devices have become vulnerable to cyber threats. Ironically, while the importance of cyber security protection is being emphasized, the industrial Ethernet protocol associations have no firm plans to migrate to new Ethernet standards that offer higher cyber security protection.

By Bill Lydon, Editor To learn more about the Belden's Certified Industrial Network Program, I talked with Brian Oulton, Director of Initiative and Vertical Marketing at Belden. Here is a transcript of that interview.

Spuntech Industries’ North Carolina plant has a Profibus network that runs seven PLCs with approximately 350 nodes. To help diagnose problems, Spuntech installed Trebing + Himstedt’s TH LINK hardware and TH SCOPE diagnostic software.

The Littleton/Englewood Wastewater Treatment in Colorado had 35 gateway access points to monitor and troubleshoot all the instruments and processes within the Profibus network. They replaced the gateways with Trebing + Himstedt’s TH LINK devices.

The DCS will control more than 13,000 points and ProfiBus will control 3,600 distributed devices for two 1GW ultra-supercritical thermal power generating units at the Fujian Hongshan Thermal Power Plant.

IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) was first approved as an IEEE standard on 23 June 1983 and since then has been regularly updated. Now that it's 30 years old, can we trust it?

SAB, a producer of high strength steel, standardized on Softing's PROFINET protocol software for use with its PC-based Proview control system in a new steel plant that was built in Mobile, Alabama.

Industrial Ethernet nodes in process industries are projected to rise to 8.7 million units in 2016, up a whopping 96 percent from 4.4 million in 2011, as Ethernet increasingly challenges fieldbus for leadership in the industrial networking market.

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

IMS Research says the growth rate for new motor control Ethernet nodes--including PROFINET, Ethernet/IP, POWERLINK and EtherCAT--is projected to be the highest across the whole industrial space at nearly 30%.

The PROFI Interface Center (PIC) in Johnson City, TN, made a significant investment in new equipment and systems to enhance its ability to train industrial networking engineers in coming years.

The fieldbus interface increases the communications flexibility of the automation system for machine builders and end-users alike, further enabling the realization of the best possible application performance.

Hilscher enters U.S. market by signing Professional Control Corporation (PCC) in Germantown, WI and Electro-Matic Products (EMP) in Farmington Hills, MI, as distributors of fieldbus products.

IXXAT Automation is a supplier of communication technology for industrial automation, machine manufacturing and the automotive industry.

HART, FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, OPC and PI (PROFIBUS & PROFINET) are co-sponsors of the Field Communication Lounge exhibit at Hannover Messe (8-12 April).

Automation.com, January 2013 By Bill Lydon, Editor The addition of an EtherNet/IP stack to the Siemens Sinamics drives offers another option and makes life easier for users and machine builders. The Sinamics S120 drive products now support Profibus DP, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, and Ethernet TCP/IP.

Automation.com, January 2013 By Bill Lydon, Editor Industrial Ethernet networks and protocols have become a workhorse of automation systems. But how extensively should it be used? Ethernet is not ideal in all applications. Consider the good, the bad and the ugly.

PI welcomes the new basic technology as an important contribution toward the widespread use of drives with PROFIBUS and PROFINET in applications.

PROFINET functions for process automation include CiR, redundancy, time synchronization, and time stamping.