WirelessHART Technology Seminar Educates Users on Industry’s First Wireless Communication Standard
Automation professionals in Malaysia learn about new technology through presentations and live demonstrations
Austin, Texas, USA (9 December 2009) – The HART® Communication Foundation (www.hartcomm.org) educational seminar, Using WirelessHART Technology in Process Industries, was presented for the first time to a capacity crowd of automation professionals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last week. The seminar was presented by specialists from ABB, Emerson Process Management, Endress+Hauser, Pepperl+Fuchs, and Siemens, Foundation member companies that also provided the gateways and devices used in the seminar’s live demonstrations of WirelessHART technology.
Attendees learned how WirelessHART, the first interoperable wireless communication standard for the process industries, can help lower operating costs, reduce downtime, and move their company to a predictive maintenance strategy. The presentations included an overview of WirelessHART technology, application solutions and live demonstrations of monitoring, secure commissioning, plus device configuration and diagnostics.
The live demonstrations included gateways, native WirelessHART devices with built-in radio, battery and antenna, and both loop-powered and battery-powered WirelessHART adapters used to wirelessly enable existing traditional wired HART devices.
With the WirelessHART standard, plants only need a single standard for both wired and wireless sensor network infrastructure. Once a WirelessHART gateway from one vendor is deployed in the plant, wireless devices from other vendors can network to it. The value of the plant investment not only will be protected, but also will increase over time as more WirelessHART devices are integrated with wired devices to solve new plant challenges.
The seminar also provided a hands-on experience for users. One attendee commented that “seeing WirelessHART interoperate was a real experience, not just data from one brand device in another brand’s software, but devices from five different manufacturers forming a robust mesh network relaying data from one to the other and integrating with wired solutions.”
The WirelessHART standard is gaining acceptance among manufacturers and international industry standardization and user organizations. The technology has been recognized by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as a Publically Available Specification, and recently passed the critical “CDV” stage of the IEC standardization process. NAMUR, an international user association of 121 member companies in the chemical/pharmaceutical processing industry, conducted extensive field tests on the technology. Their report confirms that WirelessHART technology meets the requirements for wireless sensor networks in process applications, is interoperable, robust and secure, and can coexist with other wireless networks.
HART Communication is the leading technology for smart process instruments with more than 30 million devices installed worldwide. WirelessHART technology is backward compatible with currently installed HART devices, is supported by existing HART tools, training and personnel, providing additional capabilities and ways to access asset management information in both existing and new monitoring and control applications.
The HART Communication Foundation (www.hartcomm.org) is an international, not-for-profit, membership organization supported by more than 230 companies worldwide. Founded in 1993, the Foundation is the technology owner and central authority on the HART Protocol and provides global support for application of the HART technology. The Foundation manages and controls the HART standards including new technology developments and enhancements that benefit and support the needs of the industry.