Process industry registers fieldbus devices
Process control equipment manufacturers have registered seven fieldbus devices with the Fieldbus Foundation. The move-the first official registration of fieldbus instruments-augurs a new era of standardized process control communications.
The devices receiving the official Foundation registration mark are:
- Rosemount Inc.'s Model 3244 temperature transmitter.
- Rosemount's Model 3051 pressure transmitter.
- Smar Equipamentos Indistriais Ltda.'s Model LD 302 pressure transmitter.
- Smar Equipamentos's Model TT302 temperature transmitter.
- Smar Equipamentos's Model IF302 analog-to-fieldbus converter.
- Yokogawa Electric Corp.'s Model EJA pressure transmitter.
- Yokogawa Electric's Model YF flowmeter.
Device registration
Fieldbus is a plant communications network that enables digital instruments to communicate with one another, and with supervisory control systems (OGJ, May 20, 1996, p. 78).Fieldbus Foundation, based in Austin, is a nonprofit organization comprising more than 120 process and manufacturing automation companies. The foundation's goal is the "development of a single, international, interoperable fieldbus."
Fieldbus Foundation said it undertook the registration process "only after devices from multiple suppliers containing communications 'stacks' from different developers had passed the interoperability tests."
It added, however, that passing these tests alone is insufficient for registration with the foundation:
"Suppliers must provide evidence that their device-under-test (DUT) fieldbus physical interface conforms to the foundation fieldbus physical layer conformance test specification (FF-830), and that the DUT contains an unmodified, foundation-registered communications stack.
"The registration process also requires (that) the DUT pass an interoperability test of its standard function blocks, resource block, and system/ network management functions. This test is conducted using an interoperability test system (ITS)ellipsedeveloped byellipseFraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe, Germany.
"The ITS test engine executes library functions (macros) and more than 300 individual test cases that exercise the DUT implementation."
Testing is conducted by the foundation at its Austin laboratory. Any registered device that is later changed or modified must be retested and reregistered through the foundation.
New era?
Fieldbus Foundation Pres. John Pittman said the registration of the first products bearing the foundation's mark for fieldbus devices "ellipsesignifies the beginning of a new, dynamic era in plant automation."ellipseThe long-standing promise of fieldbus-fully integrated digital control with interoperable host and field devices-has now been fulfilled with the availability of registered products.
A number of other devices will be registered soon.
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