OPEN Communication Architectures
Optimising Automation with Open Systems for Industrial Communication
Open systems and solutions for industrial communications have been posing a challenge for manufacturers and users for many years. While open communication protocols have now become quite standardised and are being used in many systems, the interfaces to access diagnoses and status reports of field devices prove to be a lot less open. Usually, the issues of reliability and availability preclude the total remodeling of proven system structures such as the automation pyramid.
How then can new technologies such as Ethernet to the field, wireless or predictive maintenance be used to optimize industrial systems? An answer is provided by the example of how the IS1+ ServiceBus is being used as a second channel for PROFIBUS DP installations.
For more independence and safety: industrial communication with the ServiceBus
The NAMUR Open Architecture (NOA) is a project that was started with the aim of connecting these new impulses with proven structures in industrial communication. One idea was to open a "second channel" to the field device. This basic principle has long been an integral part of the Remote I/O systems from R. STAHL.
A Service Bus – physically assembled as a second bus, or logically inside the Ethernet network – is used to read additional data and information independently of the process. Transmission is via cable or wireless networks up to Zone 1. The IS1+ Remote I/O System also features new options. For example, the integrated predictive maintenance function can issue alarms up to twelve months prior to a predicted failure, thus reliably protecting against unexpected failures.
