Wireless co-chairs caught between two stools

At the recent Honeywell EMEA Users’ Group conference in Lisbon, senior company officials reported that a merger of WirelessHART and ISA100.11a would not happen because of the level of technical mismatch found between the two wireless standards. (See PE report)

This view echoed reported comments by Dick Caro, who is co-chair of the ISA100.12 sub-committee, which was set up a year ago within the US-based International Society of Automation to look into the possibility of combining both standards.

In a recent interview for Managing Automation, for example Caro is quoted as saying: “ISA-100.11a and WirelessHART are inherently incompatible from a standards viewpoint … They are so different in detail that I don’t know of anybody who is interested in writing a document that puts them together.” (See further comments from Caro below)

However Process Engineering’s report from the Honeywell event drew fire from Paul Sereiko, the other ISA100.12 co-chair, who in a letter (see below) basically pointed out that the ISA sub-committee had yet to reach any conclusions on this complex issue.

Interestingly, though, Sereiko seemed unaware of Caro’s comments – a breakdown in communications or, perhaps, an indication of further division in what is increasingly developing into the process industry’s own version of the VHS versus Betamax battle.

Please email your views to the editor: patrick.raleigh@centaur.co.uk

Letter from Paul Sereiko Co-Chair  ISA100.12

As the  Co-Chair of ISA100.12 I need to correct some misinformation presented in  the ‘Wireless merge “will not happen”’ article of November 5, 2009.

In the  first paragraph you state that ISA has concluded that due to technical  differences it’s impossible to merge ISA100.11a and WirelessHART. This statement is not true.  ISA, as an association would never make this conclusion, it would be up to the subcommittee responsible for  converging the two standards, that is ISA100.12.

In paragraph 2 the  article quotes Honeywell’s Jean-Marie Alliet as stating that the ISA100.12  committee has concluded that the merger will not happen. First, I do not  know Mr. Alliet, he is not a voting member of ISA100 or ISA100.12, nor has  he ever participated in an ISA100.12 conference call or meeting.  

I am  not sure what his source of information is but the statement made is  patently false.  The sub-committee and our charter demand that we continue to work towards convergence and we have reached no such conclusion. I have been leading this committee for nearly two years, hav chaired every meeting and conference call, and have attended all but one  face to fact meeting.  

With this factual basis established, here is  what is actually occurring in ISA100.12:

1 - We are developing a Recommended Practice for vendors and users that illustrates how a field  device could support software that operates both ISA100.11a and  WirelessHART, but NOT at the same time.  This document should be  released in the first quarter of 2010.

2 - We are preparing a White Paper,  along with the ISA100 Co-Existence working group that describes for end  users techniques for maximizing smooth co-existence between WirelessHART  and ISA100.11a networks that are installed in the same facility and in  overlapping radio space.

3 - We are developing a comparison document that  outlines the differences between ISA100.11a and WirelessHART.  When  completed this document will serve two purposes.  First, it will  provide end users with a vehicle to allow them to intelligently query their  vendors during purchasing decisions. Second, it will provide a starting  point for technical teams from both the ISA100.11a camp and the  WirelessHART camp to begin the arduous process of converging the two  specifications.

Cordially,
Paul Sereiko
Co-Chair  ISA100.12

October 23, 2009 - ISA100.12 Status and Comments from Dick Caro, co-chair ISA100.12 WirelessHART Convergence Subcommittee:

“The ISA100.12 committee has spent over a year conducting a very detailed review of the technical differences between the ISA100.11a and WirelessHART technologies, including protocol suite, system management, gateway, and security specifications. It is now very clear they are not compatible.

To write a single standard from which you could pick a menu of options and come up with either the ISA100.11a or WirelessHART approaches from the same converged standard will not happen. Both technologies are so different that I don’t know of anybody who is interested in writing a standard that tries to put them together.

With that in mind, the ISA100.12 group is directing its efforts toward a Recommended Practice document for a “dual boot” approach that would require a vendor to have both the ISA100.11a and the WirelessHART firmware capable of running in a single device. This idea was suggested by a panel of users as one of the best ways to achieve convergence. Instead of convergence in the technologies, do convergence at the device.

This way, end users could choose one or the other technology during the provisioning stage to run in the single device. The dual boot technology for both specifications has been available from Nivis, LLC for over a year now. So this approach is very realistic. The dual boot recommended practice document has already been approved by the ISA100.12 subcommittee and is currently going through comment review before being issued for ballot by ISA100.”