Top 10: Industrial wireless

Apprion has completed work on a wireless video applications at the Stevenson mill of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. - a major US containerboard and corrugated packaging producer, and one of the world’s largest paper recyclers. The application, claims Apprion, is one of the largest industrial wireless systems of its type in the world. Read more

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) has launched its ISA-100.11a certification services. Testing is being conducted for the WCI by National Technical Systems Inc., an independent third-party engineering, testing and certification company. Among suppliers in the initial launch was Nivis LLC, which supplies open standard wireless sensing and control networks. It is the first company to have an ISA-100.11a-certified protocol stack – enabling integration of ISA-100.11a wireless communication technology into real-world industrial plant applications. WCI expects the ISA-100.11a standard to be submitted to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for approval in early 2011. Certified products already deployed can maintain compliance with a simple, over-the-air firmware upgrade provided by the vendors, it said.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) has approved the WirelessHART specification as a European National Standard (EN 62591). CEN released the standard to CENELEC, the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization, whose members are the national electrotechnical committees of 31 European countries. CENELEC approved the WirelessHART European Standard on 1 June. The WirelessHART specification was approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission as a full international standard (IEC 62591Ed. 1.0) in March. “Approval as a European National Standard further confirms acceptance of the technology by users and suppliers as a technically sound, reliable and secure solution for wireless communication in process automation.” said Ron Helson, executive director of the HART Communication Foundation. WirelessHART-compatible products are available from suppliers including ABB, Emerson, Endress+Hauser, MACTek, Nivis, Phoenix Contact, Pepperl+Fuchs and Siemens. 

 The wireless standards saga has entered a new chapter with Yokogawa’s launch of the “first” ISA100.11a devices, backed by claims that the rival WirelessHART standard had not made much headway in the market, despite an approximate two-year headstart. As Joost van Loon, director, industrial automation at Yokogawa Europe, declared: “We see from our customer base that users are not really choosing WirelessHART … There is no significant installed base yet.” However, Bob Karschnia, vice president, wireless, at Emerson countered: “We know of more than 1400 sites where [WirelessHART] is in use, many with multiple networks ….” Read more

Mark McCormick of Siemens Industry Automation and Drive Technologies says many food and beverage manufacturers and breweries are now investing in wireless, and are achieving increasing efficiencies with the technology. Read more

Honeywell has announced enhancements to its OneWireless offering, which, it said, will give industrial facilities more options to tailor wireless networks to their needs and lower the total cost of ownership. OneWireless R200, which is compliant with the ISA100.11a standard, will allow plants to design a wireless network with coverage either for field instruments only, or for both field instruments and Wi-Fi devices. The technology can also cut the installation and maintenance costs of wireless field instrument networks by up to 50%.

Yokogawa claims to have developed “the world’s first” field wireless devices based on the ISA100.11a industrial wireless communications standard. The products, it said, will be available on the market from July, with trial kits to be included in the offering. Read more

Formosa Chemicals and Fiber Corp. has recently installed Honeywell’s OneWireless wireless technology to eliminate the need to take manual temperature measurements on three of its rotary machines at its rayon plants in Yilan, Taiwan. The system was also used to fix the deviation in infrared sensors it was experiencing due to weather changes.

Adept Scientific of Letchworth, UK has added Tag4M WiFi sensor tag from Cores Electronic - an Austin, Texas-based technology company - to its range of data acquisition products. The credit card-sized device uses RFID and Internet technology to enable measurement and analysis of process parameters within an ’instrumentation cloud’. Read more

Dubai Aluminum Co. Ltd (DUBAL) has cut its energy consumption following the installation of a wireless network at its Jebel Ali site. The system was required to manage an increasing demand for compressed air in each of seven plant areas at the facility - one of the world’s largest aluminium smelters. DUBAL added a Smart Wireless network from Emerson to monitor trends and spikes in air flow consumption and provide operators with real-time data around the clock.