Knowledge Center: Process Performance
The Business of Wireless
With increasing investment by big players and more momentum in wireless standards, the business case for wire-free industrial solutions is becoming clearer, says Madanmohan Rao.
The process manufacturing sector is a prime example of the promising new world of wireless. Within five years, spending on industrial wireless technology – including sensing products and local area networks (LANs) – will exceed US$1 billion per year, according to a recent study from analyst firm ARC Advisory Group. This represents an annual growth rate of32 percent through 2012.
“Manufacturers believe better visibility has huge potential value in the form of more consistent use of best practices, higher plant utilisation and improvedoperational safety”, says Harry Forbes of ARC.
With its dramatically lower installation cost, which ARC believes will cause the normal change-averse process industries to use it wherever they can, leading to more rapid adoption, wireless process sensing isexpected to be the fastest growing market segment.
As for wireless LANs, their adoption will be accelerated by new access point products that can safely be installed in the hazardous environments that may be present in such plants. The longer range and clearer signals provided for in future wireless standards should also make LANs more attractive toprocess manufacturers.
The market potential of industrial wireless has also attracted attention from major players to invest in promising startups that can be integrated into theirlarger suite of offerings.
For instance, Motorola Ventures, the strategic venture capital arm of wireless giant Motorola , recently announced an investment in Apprion, a supplier of open industrial wireless networks and applications. With the Motorola Ventures investment,Apprion has now raised over US$23.5 million.
Apprion’s ION System enables industrial facilities to deploy and manage multiple wireless applications as one unified, integrated system. This includes an onsite multi-RF controller that manages data services, workflow, security, monitoring and maintenance, and third-party application integration across wirelessplant networks.
“Over the last decade wireless technologies have radically changed how we live. Over the next decade, we expect to see wireless technologies transform manufacturing by the same magnitude,” says John O’Donohue, Managing Director, Motorola Ventures.
Developing standards Much of the standardisation activity has been in WirelessHart and ISA100. ISA100 has a broader scope in terms of safety, control, monitoring and mobility features. The WirelessHart standard was specified in September 2007 and is now going for IEC adoption, while the compliance programmes for ISA100 are expected to kick off in late 2008 or early 2009.
The ISA100 standards committee on wireless systems for industrial automation met this past June in France to advance the development of a universalfamily of wireless standards.
The recently approved Wireless Convergence Subcommittee, ISA100.12, held formative meetings to define membership guidelines, review and revise subcommittee scope, assign tasks to subcommitteetask groups, and discuss preliminary deliverables.
This subcommittee will initially address convergence of the ISA100.11a standard and the WirelessHart specification. Initial deliverables will include organization of the recently released WirelessHart portion of the HART 7.1 specification into a format suitable for convergence discussionswith ISA100.11a, as well as a providing a framework for evaluating convergenceoptions.
Meanwhile, the ISA100.21 working group on people and asset tracking and identification reviewed their latest draft of “A Review of Technologies for Industrial Asset Tracking”. This document describes real-time location service or system (RTLS) technologies that are being touted by vendors as optimal forindustrial asset monitoring.
There is increasing agreement on the common vocabulary to describe the terminology associated with wireless technology and its implementation in industrial automation.
There is increasing agreement on the common vocabulary to describe the terminology associated with wireless technology and itsimplementation in industrial automation.
“Wireless is changing the way our customers think about manufacturing,” stated Jack Bolick, President, Honeywell Process Solutions, recently. “Process manufacturers have been asking for wireless networks that can handle thousands of wireless devices in a plant: transmitters, meters, sensors, hand-held devices and countless others. “Needing to have a separate wireless network for each kindof device is an expensive and cumbersome proposition.”
In June, Honeywell announced an updated version of its OneWireless industrial wireless network equipment that is designed to be compatible with the ISA100.11a industrial wirelesscommunication standard.
“The latest OneWireless release is the process industries’ first mesh network with ISA100-ready hardware. The network can be easily upgraded to the ISA100.11a standard, when it is completed,through an over-the-air software update,” read the announcement.
“Manufacturers have been asking for a secure and reliable multifunctional wireless network that can handle the thousands of devices they use within their plants,” said Harsh Chitale, vice president of strategy and global marketing for Honeywell Process Solutions. “Until now, the only way to do so was with proprietary systems. The ISA100.11a standard will allow OneWireless users to achieve thisvision using a standards-based network.”
“Our sights are broadening to investigate how to accommodate existing protocols that may not be especially developed for industrial environments but may find use there,” says Wayne Manges, ISA100 co-chair. One such example is the creation of a new interest group that will begin preliminary evaluation of the applicability of ZigBeewithin the ISA100 family of standards.
As for other related standards, the Internet Engineering Task Force’s Routing over Low-power and Lossy Networks (ROLL) group is also pursuing a standard for control and sensor nodes onBluetooth, Wi-Fi and 802.15.4 nets to link to the broader Internet.
This is also expected to help define the next phase of embedded Internet and reduce the challenges of multiple translation gateways on integrated scaleablenetworks.
The green link
Demand for energy management systems has never been greater. Soaring fuel prices and competition for those resources are creating a global energy crisis. The expense to build new power plants has more than doubled since 2000. Growing public resistance for building more power generation or transmission often delays or preventsmany new projects.
With gover nment legislation on the horizon requiring coal-fired generators to pay fees to emit global warming gases, the shift toward energy efficiency becomes more compellingand cost-effective.
Against this backdrop, ZigBee Smart Energy is aimed at providing an affordable and easy way to improve energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact, according to Bob Heile, Chairman of the ZigBee Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumerapplications.
The ZigBee Smart Energy public application profile is a readyto- use solution offering utilities and technology suppliers a secure, interoperable, wireless global standard for developing products that improve energy management and efficiency for both consumers and corporations, who will then be in a better position to respondto government demands for energy efficiency.
In May 2008, the Alliance certified 19 ZigBee Smart Energy products. These products represent a full range of devices necessary to implement a wide variety of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) programs.
Sensing opportunities Sensors for temperature and relative humidity are moving into wireless modes and configurations. For instance, Banner Engineering’s SureCross sensor is now optimised for use with thecompany’s SureCross Wireless Network.
The SureCross Temperature and Humidity Sensor is factorycalibrated to determine relative humidity to ±2% or ±3.5% (depending on model) and delivers temperature accuracy to ±0.3° C for simple critical data monitoring. It can now operate as a wirelessnode to operate on a FlexPower battery supply for up to 20 years.
Fixed and remote-mount node and sensor models enable a wide range of installation scenarios, including in-duct and freestanding applications. The wireless option provides a robust, reliable wirelesssolution with bidirectional fully acknowledged data transmission.
“Monitoring the optimal temperature and humidity in controlled storage areas is crucial to ensuring optimum product quality,” according to Chris Dales, Senior Application Engineer, Banner Wireless Division, which also manufactures a range of wireless networks, photoelectric and ultrasonic sensors, vision sensors, electronic machine guarding systems, fiber optic assemblies and precisionmeasurement systems.
And startup companies are noticeably active in this industrial space. For instance, GainSpan is working on Wi-Fi sensor nets, and has reportedly developed a Wi-Fi chip that can be directly attached to batteries drawing as little as 1 to 5 microamps in standby mode. And Dust Networks’ implementations are being used in coalplants to monitor whether motors are running or on the verge of breakdown.
Eltav Wireless Monitoring is developing wireless monitoring solutions for industrial ball valves. The sensors verify the proper functioning of the valves, via wireless signals to central control rooms; the sensors’ batteries last five years, greatly reducing electricity consumption and its related costs. Eltav CEO Israel Radomsky is a member of the ISAstandards committee.
Oil & gas demands
The value of oil has caused oil & gas companies to work to improve their monitoring processes to prevent product loss and optimize production, which will require increased adoption of intelligent field devices, including controlvalves, and wireless technology.
Wireless is a key investment area across the whole oil and gas supply chain including refineries/ petrochemical plants, pipelines, exploration & production, andtransportation.
While profits are high, the cost of doing business is increasing as oil and gas supplies become more difficult to find and exploit. In addition, refineries and petrochemical plants face stringent regulations and areoperating at near full capacity.
Several new entrants, startups, and industry consortiums have emerged to develop wireless sensor innovations for internal pipeline corrosion monitoring, wellhole drilling andcompletion, seismic sensors, and nanotechnologies.
Alerting and monitoring applications are overwhelming candidates for wireless systems in early stages of design and deployment, says Koji Demachi, Head of Technology Marketing for Yokogawa Electric Corporation. These findings are based on the ISA 100 Usage Class definitions for wireless communications, which include safety,control, alerting and logging.
Demachi cites typical wireless applications in the oil and gas sectors, such as monitoring of wellhead, pipeline, chimney top, tankyard and rig. Wireless implementation projects should ensure mission criticality (via reliability and robustness), openness (via interoperability), wide area scope (via scalability and flexibility) and regulatoryrequirements (via compliance).
This is the typical challenge with global standardisation, Yokogawa’s Demachi explains, balancing short-term growth with long-term stabilisation and future-proofing. Still, he urges that field trials proceed so that experiences could be accumulated and confidence factors increased.
Madanmohan Rao is editor of “Asia Unplugged: The Wireless & Mobile Media Boom in Asia-Pacific”.
For more information Please visit Honeywell website at www.honeywell.com/ps/sea
With increasing investment by big players and more momentum in wireless standards, the business case for wire-free industrial solutions is becoming clearer, says Madanmohan Rao.
The process manufacturing sector is a prime example of the promising new world of wireless. Within five years, spending on industrial wireless technology – including sensing products and local area networks (LANs) – will exceed US$1 billion per year, according to a recent study from analyst firm ARC Advisory Group. This represents an annual growth rate of32 percent through 2012.
“Manufacturers believe better visibility has huge potential value in the form of more consistent use of best practices, higher plant utilisation and improvedoperational safety”, says Harry Forbes of ARC.
With its dramatically lower installation cost, which ARC believes will cause the normal change-averse process industries to use it wherever they can, leading to more rapid adoption, wireless process sensing isexpected to be the fastest growing market segment.
As for wireless LANs, their adoption will be accelerated by new access point products that can safely be installed in the hazardous environments that may be present in such plants. The longer range and clearer signals provided for in future wireless standards should also make LANs more attractive toprocess manufacturers.
The market potential of industrial wireless has also attracted attention from major players to invest in promising startups that can be integrated into theirlarger suite of offerings.
For instance, Motorola Ventures, the strategic venture capital arm of wireless giant Motorola , recently announced an investment in Apprion, a supplier of open industrial wireless networks and applications. With the Motorola Ventures investment,Apprion has now raised over US$23.5 million.
Apprion’s ION System enables industrial facilities to deploy and manage multiple wireless applications as one unified, integrated system. This includes an onsite multi-RF controller that manages data services, workflow, security, monitoring and maintenance, and third-party application integration across wirelessplant networks.
“Over the last decade wireless technologies have radically changed how we live. Over the next decade, we expect to see wireless technologies transform manufacturing by the same magnitude,” says John O’Donohue, Managing Director, Motorola Ventures.
Developing standards Much of the standardisation activity has been in WirelessHart and ISA100. ISA100 has a broader scope in terms of safety, control, monitoring and mobility features. The WirelessHart standard was specified in September 2007 and is now going for IEC adoption, while the compliance programmes for ISA100 are expected to kick off in late 2008 or early 2009.
The ISA100 standards committee on wireless systems for industrial automation met this past June in France to advance the development of a universalfamily of wireless standards.
The recently approved Wireless Convergence Subcommittee, ISA100.12, held formative meetings to define membership guidelines, review and revise subcommittee scope, assign tasks to subcommitteetask groups, and discuss preliminary deliverables.
This subcommittee will initially address convergence of the ISA100.11a standard and the WirelessHart specification. Initial deliverables will include organization of the recently released WirelessHart portion of the HART 7.1 specification into a format suitable for convergence discussionswith ISA100.11a, as well as a providing a framework for evaluating convergenceoptions.
Meanwhile, the ISA100.21 working group on people and asset tracking and identification reviewed their latest draft of “A Review of Technologies for Industrial Asset Tracking”. This document describes real-time location service or system (RTLS) technologies that are being touted by vendors as optimal forindustrial asset monitoring.
There is increasing agreement on the common vocabulary to describe the terminology associated with wireless technology and its implementation in industrial automation.
There is increasing agreement on the common vocabulary to describe the terminology associated with wireless technology and itsimplementation in industrial automation.
“Wireless is changing the way our customers think about manufacturing,” stated Jack Bolick, President, Honeywell Process Solutions, recently. “Process manufacturers have been asking for wireless networks that can handle thousands of wireless devices in a plant: transmitters, meters, sensors, hand-held devices and countless others. “Needing to have a separate wireless network for each kindof device is an expensive and cumbersome proposition.”
In June, Honeywell announced an updated version of its OneWireless industrial wireless network equipment that is designed to be compatible with the ISA100.11a industrial wirelesscommunication standard.
“The latest OneWireless release is the process industries’ first mesh network with ISA100-ready hardware. The network can be easily upgraded to the ISA100.11a standard, when it is completed,through an over-the-air software update,” read the announcement.
“Manufacturers have been asking for a secure and reliable multifunctional wireless network that can handle the thousands of devices they use within their plants,” said Harsh Chitale, vice president of strategy and global marketing for Honeywell Process Solutions. “Until now, the only way to do so was with proprietary systems. The ISA100.11a standard will allow OneWireless users to achieve thisvision using a standards-based network.”
“Our sights are broadening to investigate how to accommodate existing protocols that may not be especially developed for industrial environments but may find use there,” says Wayne Manges, ISA100 co-chair. One such example is the creation of a new interest group that will begin preliminary evaluation of the applicability of ZigBeewithin the ISA100 family of standards.
As for other related standards, the Internet Engineering Task Force’s Routing over Low-power and Lossy Networks (ROLL) group is also pursuing a standard for control and sensor nodes onBluetooth, Wi-Fi and 802.15.4 nets to link to the broader Internet.
This is also expected to help define the next phase of embedded Internet and reduce the challenges of multiple translation gateways on integrated scaleablenetworks.
The green link
Demand for energy management systems has never been greater. Soaring fuel prices and competition for those resources are creating a global energy crisis. The expense to build new power plants has more than doubled since 2000. Growing public resistance for building more power generation or transmission often delays or preventsmany new projects.
With gover nment legislation on the horizon requiring coal-fired generators to pay fees to emit global warming gases, the shift toward energy efficiency becomes more compellingand cost-effective.
Against this backdrop, ZigBee Smart Energy is aimed at providing an affordable and easy way to improve energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact, according to Bob Heile, Chairman of the ZigBee Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumerapplications.
The ZigBee Smart Energy public application profile is a readyto- use solution offering utilities and technology suppliers a secure, interoperable, wireless global standard for developing products that improve energy management and efficiency for both consumers and corporations, who will then be in a better position to respondto government demands for energy efficiency.
In May 2008, the Alliance certified 19 ZigBee Smart Energy products. These products represent a full range of devices necessary to implement a wide variety of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) programs.
Sensing opportunities Sensors for temperature and relative humidity are moving into wireless modes and configurations. For instance, Banner Engineering’s SureCross sensor is now optimised for use with thecompany’s SureCross Wireless Network.
The SureCross Temperature and Humidity Sensor is factorycalibrated to determine relative humidity to ±2% or ±3.5% (depending on model) and delivers temperature accuracy to ±0.3° C for simple critical data monitoring. It can now operate as a wirelessnode to operate on a FlexPower battery supply for up to 20 years.
Fixed and remote-mount node and sensor models enable a wide range of installation scenarios, including in-duct and freestanding applications. The wireless option provides a robust, reliable wirelesssolution with bidirectional fully acknowledged data transmission.
“Monitoring the optimal temperature and humidity in controlled storage areas is crucial to ensuring optimum product quality,” according to Chris Dales, Senior Application Engineer, Banner Wireless Division, which also manufactures a range of wireless networks, photoelectric and ultrasonic sensors, vision sensors, electronic machine guarding systems, fiber optic assemblies and precisionmeasurement systems.
And startup companies are noticeably active in this industrial space. For instance, GainSpan is working on Wi-Fi sensor nets, and has reportedly developed a Wi-Fi chip that can be directly attached to batteries drawing as little as 1 to 5 microamps in standby mode. And Dust Networks’ implementations are being used in coalplants to monitor whether motors are running or on the verge of breakdown.
Eltav Wireless Monitoring is developing wireless monitoring solutions for industrial ball valves. The sensors verify the proper functioning of the valves, via wireless signals to central control rooms; the sensors’ batteries last five years, greatly reducing electricity consumption and its related costs. Eltav CEO Israel Radomsky is a member of the ISAstandards committee.
Oil & gas demands
The value of oil has caused oil & gas companies to work to improve their monitoring processes to prevent product loss and optimize production, which will require increased adoption of intelligent field devices, including controlvalves, and wireless technology.
Wireless is a key investment area across the whole oil and gas supply chain including refineries/ petrochemical plants, pipelines, exploration & production, andtransportation.
While profits are high, the cost of doing business is increasing as oil and gas supplies become more difficult to find and exploit. In addition, refineries and petrochemical plants face stringent regulations and areoperating at near full capacity.
Several new entrants, startups, and industry consortiums have emerged to develop wireless sensor innovations for internal pipeline corrosion monitoring, wellhole drilling andcompletion, seismic sensors, and nanotechnologies.
Alerting and monitoring applications are overwhelming candidates for wireless systems in early stages of design and deployment, says Koji Demachi, Head of Technology Marketing for Yokogawa Electric Corporation. These findings are based on the ISA 100 Usage Class definitions for wireless communications, which include safety,control, alerting and logging.
Demachi cites typical wireless applications in the oil and gas sectors, such as monitoring of wellhead, pipeline, chimney top, tankyard and rig. Wireless implementation projects should ensure mission criticality (via reliability and robustness), openness (via interoperability), wide area scope (via scalability and flexibility) and regulatoryrequirements (via compliance).
This is the typical challenge with global standardisation, Yokogawa’s Demachi explains, balancing short-term growth with long-term stabilisation and future-proofing. Still, he urges that field trials proceed so that experiences could be accumulated and confidence factors increased.
Madanmohan Rao is editor of “Asia Unplugged: The Wireless & Mobile Media Boom in Asia-Pacific”.
For more information Please visit Honeywell website at www.honeywell.com/ps/sea
