HART 7 released with WirelessHART

The HART Communication Foundation (HCF) has announced that the first open wireless communication standard for process measurement and control was approved and released on September 7 as part of the HART 7 standard. Besides wireless, other improvements in the process industry network include advanced, exception-based reporting, timestamped data, and better diagnostics.

HCF says WirelessHART technology addresses the critical needs of the process industry for simple, reliable and secure wireless communication in the real-world industrial plant env i ronment, and is fully backward compatible with existing instrumentation and host systems, preserving the investment in HARTenabled devices, tools, training, applications and work procedures used today.

“With official release of the HART 7 Specifications,” said Ron Helson, HCF Executive Director, “the WirelessHART standard is now publicly available, and manufacturers can begin implementing this new capability into their products and process solutions. I expect that products complying with this new standard will be available from multiple manufacturers in early 2008.”

Ed Ladd, HCF Director of Technology Programs, pointed to other significant advantages beyond wireless capabilities: advanced, condition-based reporting, on exception, so you can set up a device to report a problem before you have to ask for information; time-stamped data, synchronized over the network; and multiple messages in one transmission, optimizing the network for wireless operation, conserving batteries.