Networks set fair

Last month’s mammoth Hanover Fair once again hosted the Interkama exhibition, devoted to process automation. Mike Spear reports on some of the highlights, including a gathering of all the major fieldbus and other communications network organisations.

Like Achema, its chemical industry counterpart, the Hanover Fair is of a scale that dwarves any comparable trade event in the UK. Even concentrating on just Interkama — largely process control and instrumentation, as opposed to the general manufacturing activities elsewhere on the site — narrows the scope down to a mere 1145 exhibiting companies, spread over 52 000m2 in eight out of the total of 24 halls. No breakdown of visitor numbers is available just yet, but the aggregate of over 205 000 for the whole event, 20% up on last year, points to a success all round.

The decision to move Interkama from its traditional home in Düsseldorf and incorporate it into the Hanover Fair certainly appears to have been vindicated. There is an increasing synergy emerging between the process and manufacturing sectors — a fact not lost on the exhibitors, particularly the various fieldbus groups.

Speaking for the Profibus user organisation, for example, managing director Volker Oestreich said: ‘By focusing on end-to-end automation, the Fair is geared precisely to the needs of exhibitors and visitors. The rigid boundaries between production and process automation are disappearing fast. End-to-end automation plays a key role here.’

On home turf, so to speak, Profibus International was out in force at Interkama, with chairman Edgar Küster saying it was well on course to double the number of installed units from 10 to 20million within four years (2004 to the end of 2007). Some 2.6 million were installed last year across all industry sectors and, by the end of 2004, around 400 000 Profibus PA devices were in use in process plants and systems — an overall doubling in the last two years.

Not to be outdone, the Fieldbus Foundation (FF) could draw on the support of the many major process automation companies featured in its display area. (The concept of a ‘stand’ is a little understated at Hanover — Siemens, for example, occupied about a quarter of a hall all to itself, complete with stage show and a backdrop of a fully functioning production line). Surrounded by networked exhibits from the likes of Emerson Process Management, Invensys, Yokogawa and Endress + Hauser, FF chairman and ceo, Rich Timoney, presented its 2004 year-end survey. This shows more than 500 000 FF-compliant devices and 8000 fieldbus systems have been shipped or installed to date — including 18 major installations last year.

Acknowledging that FF is still predominantly US-focused, with over 50% of installations, Timoney nevertheless says that over 40% of the Foundation membership is now in Europe and the Middle East, and of last year’s major installations only three were in the US.

Despite the competing claims for their share of the process market, the two fieldbus organisations are more than happy to sit down together these days, as their collaboration on the enhanced Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) technology demonstrates. Phase 1 of the EDDL co-operative project, involving FF, Profibus and the HART Communication Foundation (HCF), should, says Timoney, eventually lead to an IEC standard for this text-based language that describes the digital characteristics of intelligent control devices, irrespective of the network on which they are mounted.

Phase 2 of the EDDL project has now also been joined by the OPC Foundation in what is described by ARC Group analyst, Larry O’Brien, as ‘a smart move that will enhance interoperability significantly at the system and enterprise level in a truly open fashion that is independent of any operating system architecture.’

As well as HART’s involvement with EDDL — ably supported on the HCF stand by Emerson Process Management — HCF executive director, Ron Helson announced the launch of a new Wireless HART initiative. Through a working group set up in March, the HCF hopes to develop a standard that ’will ensure seamless, interoperable solution for connecting HART devices in a wireless environment’.

Interest in industrial wireless communications is growing rapidly, as could be seen in the special Wireless Automation area set up at Interkama. According to Pelle Svensson of connectBlue, his Swedish Bluetooth-specialist company was one of just five taking part in a similar section at last year’s show. This year there were 28 exhibiting and contributing to five days of seminars and presentations on the benefits of wireless.

ConnectBlue basically provides ready-to-run, plug-in Bluetooth chip components for equipment manufacturers. Hosting all the necessary communications software, web paging capabilities and security features, these chips are already being embedded by Phoenix Contact into its I/O devices. Svensson says connectBlue can offer ‘comms speeds of 5ms — fast enough for most process applications — and proven reliability and future-proofing of a technology that understandably is changing very quickly.’