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Wireless Technologies
Thanks to Emerson
Process Management for the following links;
Emerson's PlantWeb University now includes a wireless
curriculum
- This is a fantastic resource.
Wireless
Widens the View - Jonas Berge - A wider window into
the plant is now possible as previously "difficult to access" field
data becomes easier to collect and transmit with the latest wireless technology.
The practical and economical barriers to collecting more information from the
plant floor and surrounding areas have been dramatically lowered by the
emergence of reliable wireless field communications systems. The technology of
transmitting information from stand-alone instruments can be put to use today,
even in plants with legacy control systems. Information that was previously
difficult or impossible to access in the past is now easily collected and
transmitted from wireless devices to the plant control system.
Wireless
Technology & Best Practices to Reduce Project Costs - Mark Menezes
- Benefi ts of wireless seem obvious – “no wires”. Despite this, fewer
than 1% of installed measurements in
process plants and mills are
wireless. Fortunately, real and
perceived obstacles to wireless deployment
are being overcome with improved technology,
most recently the “self organising network”. Other obstacles are not based on
technology, but on the lack of
security, standards, and consensus
on appropriate applications, so are
best addressed with a discussion around
“best practices”. Users can now consider
adding measurements previously impossible
to cost-justify, improving safety, reliability,
efficiency and environmental compliance.
Asset
Management Leverages Smart Wireless Devices - Laura
Briggs/Joseph Citrano III - Smart Wireless Devices generate diagnostics that
extend the value of asset management systems.
10.09
Wireless
Networking in Plant -Dick Caro - The advantages of a mesh network
are redundancy, increased total distance, and removal of the line-of-sight
restriction. The reduced cost of Ethernet-based networks is driving this fast,
low-level, and low-cost technology to the field and shop floor. Another Ethernet
side effect is the application of wireless technology in the Wi-Fi group of
wireless protocols. Wi-Fi is essentially wireless Ethernet. Any higher-level
application layer and user layer can communicate via Wi-Fi at data rates up to
600 Mbps, without knowledge of the fact that it is on a radio link. From the ISA
and InTech.
Wireless:
The Golden Age of Asset Management - Peter Zornio
discusses the advancement of standards based
field wireless technology.
Deploying
Industrial Wireless Solutions - Wireless technology has not been widely
adopted for in-plant applications. Concerns about reliability, security, and
battery life of wireless devices have slowed adoption of wireless options even
where traditional wired solutions were cost-prohibitive or operationally
difficult. That's changing as improvements in wireless technology address these
concerns.
Self-Organizing
Networks: Wireless Topologies for In-Plant Applications
-The topography of a wireless network is simply the way network components
are arranged. It describes the physical layout of devices, routers,
and gateways, as well as the data flow paths between them. Three
of the most common wireless topologies for in-plant applications are star,
mesh, and cluster-tree. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses
of each, you can determine which topology is best for your specific
application.
Wireless
Technology Is Ready For Industrial Use
-Thanks to Maintenance Technology and our sponsor MooreHawke.
Wireless technology now provides secure, reliable communication for remote
field sites and applications where wires cannot be run for practical or
economic reasons. In this article, Moore Industries Applications Engineer
Gary Mathur, discusses what must be considered when looking at wireless
strategies.
Other Links
Joel
K. Young - The first part of this two-part article discusses the basics: what do
you need to know about wireless mesh networking and what criteria you should use
when assessing a mesh networking technology.
-
Making
a Smart Wireless Decision - Wireless networks have become an
essential part of communication in the last century. From the internet to mobile
phones, this invisible technology is now one of the world's favourite buzz
words. While consumers and commercial users tend to take immediate advantage of
wireless technologies as they become available, industrial users have
historically been a bit more cautious. This caution is generally due to concerns
related to critical infrastructure security and reliability. However, if the
right wireless solution is chosen, early adoptors of industrial wireless
technology can have the best of both worlds – security and reliability while
leveraging the efficiency and benefits of wireless technology - from Honeywell
Process Solutions and PACE.
Wireless
Devices in the Factory Automation – An Overview of Adoption Trends
-
Khadambari
Shanbagaraman
-
Wireless devices
are perceived as the next big technological wave in factory automation. However,
the current adoption trends are moderate at best despite requirements for real
time data, mobile workforce, remote access and flexibility in operation. This is
mainly because the wireless devices are not found to be robust enough by end
users due to concerns such as reliability, security and interoperability - from
Frost & Sullivan.
Food
and Beverages Industries go Wire Free -Khadambari
Shanbagaraman - An increasing population and growing
consumer demand for packaged foods has forced food and beverages industry to
look at new technologies that provide flexibility, easiness of operation and
constant tracking of the production process. Complete transparency is required
along the production process for assuring consumers health and hygiene. This
demands continuous monitoring and efficient traceability of the entire
production process in the food manufacturing plant. Wireless devices provide
answers to the aforementioned requirements in the Food and Beverages industry-
from Frost & Sullivan.
Radio
Theory De-Mystified - Brian Cunningham -
With increasing demands placed on plant managers to reduce operating costs,
wireless is presenting attractive alternatives to buried cable and conduit runs.
The issue at stake in choosing this alternative is reliability, and trust must
be established before users will confidently invest in this technology. This
paper discusses the different types of radio that are currently in use with a
focus on spread spectrum in process control applications. An explanation of how
a radio works is followed by a discussion of fixed frequency, direct sequence
spread spectrum, frequency hopping spread spectrum and orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing technology. Emerging radio standards are reviewed and
there is a section on how to interpret specifications and how they differentiate
one radio's performance from another. Classes of criticality for wireless
applications will be studied. Range determinations, interference mitigation and
multipath are addressed, along with issues surrounding the multitude of
frequencies in use and the advantages and disadvantages of each - from the Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance.
HART
- The Logical Wireless Solution- The HART objective is
to establish a wireless communication standard for process measurement and
control applications, this page details the present status and huge
potential of this technology.
Why
WirelessHART™? - The Right Standard at the Right Time - This
paper summarises key aspects of WirelessHART, including several of the design
decisions that make it the right choice for wireless process automation.
The Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance (WINA) is a
coalition of industrial end-user companies, technology suppliers, industry
organizations, software developers, system integrators, and others interested in
the advancement of wireless solutions for industry. They have a useful series of
technical
papers covering various Industry Applications.
WINA, the
Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance have launched a new website
- Until now, there has been no single resource that provides
wireless networking information for industrial applications, making
research a challenge for end users because of the fast pace of technology
advances, new applications, and standards. WINA's website opens the lines
of communication for the Association's work on wireless solutions by
industry and by application, and has the capability to keep members of
industry informed about standards developments and upcoming technical
conferences through forums, discussion boards, and webinars.
This Resource Library has some excellent Wireless Technical Information
- Thanks to Millennial Net
Users
fear wireless networks for control - Following is an item-by-item rebuttal
of plant engineer’s vow: “Critical data will never transmit over a wireless
link in my plant.” Fear and loathing on the technology trail - An
excellent article From Dick Caro and the ISA/InTech
Wireless
reliability in industrial automation - Two key considerations wireless
technology and hardware device contribute to building mobile and wireless
solutions that transform operations - From Scott Thie and Jeff
White and ISA/InTech
Strategic
Implementation of Wireless Technologies - The evolution in
wireless technologies has opened the door to a new class of plant automation
architecture that offers adopters a significant strategic advantage. Driven by
substantial and measurable cost savings in engineering, installation, and
logistics, as well as dramatic improvements in the frequency and reliability of
field data collection, automation experts and IT professionals are presented
with an opportunity to deliver a major, positive impact to their respective
company’s bottom line - from FreeWave.
In
2008, Wireless a No-Brainer - David Savells and Brent McAdams
- Advantages of wireless I/O go far beyond the cost of wiring: Economies of
scale, fail safe, flexibility, reliability, diagnostics and low power consumption
- Historically, regardless of the industry, hardwiring has been the only option
available for users to connect remote instrumentation assets in the
field.However, new technology enabling greater use of spread spectrum radios
gives companies the ability to connect remote instrumentation in the field
without the need for a costly, wired infrastructure - Thanks to ISA/InTech.
Users
want Happy Union with Wireless, but Doubts Linger - Patrick
Schweitzer - When it comes to wireless technology, the user community wants
simplicity, robustness, education to understand this new world, and coexistence
among all players to make this the wireless world of our dreams. Yet as wireless
picks up momentum in the industrial marketplace, users are still confounded by
the potentials and pitfalls a wireless world can bring -Thanks
to ISA/InTech.
The following papers have been sourced from Phoenix Contact;
The
Reliability of Spread Spectrum Radio for Monitoring and Control in Industrial
Environments
Antennas
– A Brief Tutorial
Wi-Fi…
Why Now? Exploring New Wireless Technologies for Industrial Applications - Patrick
McCurdy, Phoenix Contact Inc.
Radio Waves - InTech Article
-Davis Mathews
Wireless
communication for tank farm applications - At this refinery,
engineers and technicians researched wireless communication possibilities for
increased efficiency and timer monitoring. They needed to determine whether
reliable data transmission via radio would stand up to an environment with a
high level of EMI, and if the cost of cabling a large area with remote storage
tanks could be reduced or eliminated - from Phoenix Contact.
Oil
and gas processor goes wireless on the LAN -Proper data protection is a
mandatory requirement to ensure PAN communications' security and safety -
While security remains as the major concern in the use of a industrial
WLAN, or wireless local area network, it should be robust following a well
defined standard and meeting the industrial safety and security
regulations including premises protection and detection of rogue nodes
like unauthorized access points (APs)- From InTech and the ISA
The following papers are from MicroStrain;
Wireless
Systems Development for Distributed Machinery - Monitoring and Control -
Anthony J Seman III, Michael E. Donnelly, P.E., Stephen Mastro, Ph.D. - This
paper highlights the programs demonstrating the use of wireless technology for
monitoring and control of shipboard machinery during the past 10 to 15 years at
NAVSEA Philadelphia. This work includes the demonstration and testing of
wireless systems hardware and software, and also the development of suitable
architectures to fold such technologies into an overall ship machinery control
and human interface that is highly functional and affordable.
Wireless
Sensor Networks: Principles and Applications
-Chris Townsend, Steven Arms - Recent advances have resulted in the
ability to integrate sensors, radio communications, and digital electronics into
a single integrated circuit (IC) package. This capability is enabling networks
of very low cost sensors that are able to communicate with each other using low
power wireless data routing protocols. A wireless sensor network (WSN) generally
consists of a basestation (or “gateway”) that can communicate with a number
of wireless sensors via a radio link. Data is collected at the wireless sensor
node, compressed, and transmitted to the gateway directly or, if required, uses
other wireless sensor nodes to forward data to the gateway. The transmitted data
is then presented to the system by the gateway connection. The purpose of this
chapter is to provide a brief technical introduction to wireless sensor networks
and present a few applications in which wireless sensor networks are enabling.
Wireless technical
papers from MicroStrain , including strain gauges with wireless interfaces.
Power
Management for Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensors - The
objective of this work was to demonstrate smart wireless sensing nodes
capable of operation at extremely low power levels.
Frequency Agile Wireless Sensor Networks
- A wireless communications system capable of simultaneous,
high speed data communications from a variety of sensors.
Wireless
Strain Sensing Networks - A wireless communications system capable of
simultaneous, high speed data communications, particularly adapted for use
with conventional foil strain gauges.
Wireless
Strain Measurement Systems - Applications and Solutions - This article
summarizes the development of wireless micro-displacement & strain
sensing systems for medical, civil structural, automotive, and aerospace
structural health monitoring (SHM) applications.
The
Beginner's Guide to Cellular Technology
- The use of cellular technology for industrial
applications is on the rise, but it can be difficult to differentiate between
all of the options, standards, and carriers. Before deciding on a cellular
solution, there are some basics that every system integrator needs to know. This
article thanks to moxa.com covers;
- What 1G, 2G, and 3G really mean
- Understanding CDMA, GSM, GPRS, etc
- Important questions to ask
- How to apply this knowledge
ControlGlobal.com's
Walt Boyes talks wireless with Honeywell's Dave Kaufman, director of
new
business development for Honeywell's wireless solutions group. In this 19
minute podcast, Kaufman and Boyes discuss Honeywell's proposal for a product
architecture, and a draft for the upcoming RFP from SP100. You have to register
but it is worth it.
Vibration
Energy Harvester-Powered Wireless Condition Monitoring - John Parker -
Perpetuum Ltd - This interesting application note describes the steps necessary
to design the power supply and energy storage circuit of a wireless condition
monitoring sensor node.
This
concise Question and Answer Article covers Wireless Advantages, Pitfalls,
Best Practices, Wireless Terms, Security, Future, Comparison with Hard Wired
Systems, Frequency and Operating Range - from Geof Brazier and BSB Wireless.
Industrial
Wireless Networking- In this Industrial Wireless Networking webinar
you'll learn all about the latest Wireless technologies in use for Industrial
Wireless applications including IEEE 802.11 (Wireless Ethernet) , Bluetooth, and
other wireless technologies.
Topologies
for Wireless Instrumentation - To set the stage for wireless
instrumentation, do you know how to get the signal from instrument to control
system? Here’s a nuts-and-bolts guide to orchestrate your options for
permanently mounted instrumentation - from Control Engineering.
Network,
Organize Thyself - Industrial environments could benefit from reliability of
self-organizing wireless networks - Gabe Sierra, Dan Carlson,
Bob Karschnia, and Brandon Robinson - When process personnel hear the term
wireless instruments, they immediately think, great, no wires. But how do you
know if you are receiving good data on time, every time? To go a step further,
what are the limitations of self-organizing wireless network reliability, and
where should you apply it in a dynamic industrial environment? Can wireless
field devices ever be reliable enough for today's complicated industrial
environments - from ISA and InTech.
Radio Frequency Identification
|
|
The following references are from our valued sponsor Abhisam
Software
- RFID Case Study ebook
-This excellent 61 page technical reference has details on
25 different RFID applications from around the world. The password to the
document is "abhisam".
The world's
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obligation , no strings attached, absolutely free RFID course, that can be
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somebody's stale Power-Point presentation! It
has plenty of flash based animations, graphics and text, with a
self-assessment test. The visuals help you learn key concepts QUICKLY and
EASILY.
- Technical Paper on How
to Achieve FDA Compliance on the Pedigree Requirement
using RFID without
having any sleepless nights or spending a fortune but still achieve a
payback of less than a year. The password to the
document is "abhisam".
-E-learning course on RFID
- This course clearly explains RFID technology, how it
works, how it is ages ahead of bar coding and how it is applied to various
businesses and industries. It includes basic concepts, RFID Physics, RFID
Systems, Middleware and Systems, RFID and Applications and RFID Security
and Privacy.
- M-learning
course on RFID - This
is a mobile ebook, which you can download to any mobile smart phone that
runs Windows Mobile OS, Palm OS , Symbian OS or Blackberry. Alternately a
PC version is available- This quiz book contains a set of 30
questions related to RFID technology.The level of difficulty for each
question is different. Some are very elementary, whereas others require
a better knowledge about RFID technology to answer correctly.
|
OTHER LINKS
Converting
serial networks to Ethernet communications - New
communications technologies have emerged that provide high-speed wireless
Ethernet communications to field applications. From InTech and ISA.
RFID-
The Technology and its Potential - An excellent 51 page
document from Interaction Design
Institute Ivrea.
Guidelines
for Securing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Systems- A
154 page technical guideline from the national Institute of Standards and
Technology.
Improving
Plant Production with Wireless Condition Monitoring - Jim Ralston - Machines
may be in remote locations where network infrastructure is not available, or on
moving platforms where hardwired network connectivity is not practical, this
paper highlights that wireless communications is a networking alternative that
offers installation cost savings, quicker deployment and even improved
reliability in certain situations - ProSoft Technology, Inc
Using
Operator Interfaces to Optimize Performance of Industrial Wireless Networks -
The performance of wireless networks can change over time due to increased
performance demands, changes in the radio frequency (RF) environment and changes
in the physical environment. This article explores the use of a wireless
diagnostic OLE for Process Control (OPC) server technology to embed diagnostic
information in human machine interfaces (HMIs), thus optimizing industrial
wireless network performance - ProSoft Technology, Inc
Wireless
Security on the Plant Floor -Wally Gastreich - Wireless
networks can consist of many radio types based on the radio frequency and the
modulation methods. Radios may be required to obtain a license to operate in an
area or be part of the FCC approved unlicensed ISM band. Radio technologies in
the ISM band are most commonly available supporting either “open” or
proprietary standards. It is within the “open” standards such as 802.11
where most security issues are prevalent, this document discusses this - -
ProSoft Technology, Inc
11.09Wireless
Technologies take Personnel Safety in the Process Industries to a New Level
- In modern times the Process Industries have implemented many strategies
to improve the operational safety of plants to protect personnel and the
surrounding environment, to the extent that accidents are thankfully few
and far between. From Extronics.