WirelessHart on Show

The recent CIA exhibition in Singapore provided an opportunity for the Hart Communication Foundation to demonstrate interoperability of the growing number of devices that conform to the WirelessHart specification.

The Hart Communication Foundation (HCF) demonstrated IEC 62591, better known as WirelessHart, at the CIA2011 exhibition in Singapore at the end of last year. Notably, the booth hosted several manufacturers of WirelessHart transmitters and accessories, indicating the increasing number of products available that comply with the industrial wireless standard. The demonstrations included WirelessHart products from ABB, Emerson Process Management, Endress+Hauser, Mactek, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, RCS, Siemens, and Stahl. Visitors were able to witness a mix of transmitters, gateways, and adapters from these vendors interoperating live. According to Jonas Berge, director, PlantWeb Consulting, Emerson Process Management, who gave Control Engineering Asia a tour of the booth, WirelessHart uses a highly reliable self-organizing mesh network without single points of failure and eliminates the need for multiple backbone routers to form a network, thus ensuring a low risk and low cost installation while the plant is running. The devices can be deployed in applications such as pump health monitoring, turbine performance, tank farm inventory and leaks, temperature profiling, heat exchanger efficiency, and safety shower/eye wash monitoring. Recently released and on display at the booth was Emerson Process Management's wireless acoustic transmitter, which has applications including steam trap monitoring and safety relief valve monitoring. Thus it can be used to reduce energy waste and more effectively target maintenance. Emerson also demonstrated wireless conductivity, pH, pressure, temperature, valve position, and vibration as well as contact transmitters that work together with gateways from other manufacturers. And two other process automation majors, ABB and Siemens, displayed how wireless fits in their system architecture RCS displayed how a WirelessHart real-time corrosion transmitter used for corro s i o n monitoring in pipes and to optimize corrosion inhibitor injection can be installed in existing plants without having to run wires. The WirelessHart corrosion transmitter joins the same WirelessHart network as other transmitters around the plants, such as pressure and temperature transmitter. “A single common WirelessHart gateway supports all kinds of device types. There is no need for multiple protocols, or multiple gateways, or multiple drivers,” emphasized Berge. Meanwhile, ProComSol demonstrated how the same Hart handheld field communicator, and the same USB-Hart interface and computer software that plants already have, and that technicians are already familiar with, can also be used for WirelessHart devices thanks to EDDL (IEC 61804-3). By loading the EDDL file for the devices, these existing tools become compatible with new WirelessHart devices. This reduces the amount of training required for technician to work with WirelessHart devices. Stahl demonstrated a gateway that can be mounted on a DIN rail in an existing junction box. WirelessHart transmitters from other manufacturers work with the gateway. That is, a single gateway handles different measurement needs. A gateway is analogous to a PLC/ DCS analog input card with 100 channels or more. Phoenix Contact displayed how a WirelessHart adapter connects to a traditional 4-20 mA wired instrument with Hart communication to make its intelligence accessible wirelessly. Also on display was a gateway that includes both a WirelessHart wireless sensor network and Wi-Fi backhaul. “Most 4-20 mA device now support Hart, but very few of the systems used in plants support Hart. Connecting a WirelessHart adapter is an easy way to enable remote setup and diagnostics from intelligent device management software,” explained Berge.