Fieldbus Foundation supports FDI solution
June 2008
News
The Fieldbus Foundation has announced its support for efforts by the Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) Cooperation Team (ECT) and Field Device Tool (FDT) Group to develop a single, unified Field Device Integration (FDI) solution compatible with both technologies.
The historic ECT/FDT agreement, announced by representatives of both organisations at Interkama 2007 in Hannover, Germany, laid the groundwork for developing a common device integration technology benefiting both instrumentation end users and manufacturers. The agreement provides a unified path forward for device integration that is based on use case requirements, incorporates the best aspects of each technology, and eliminates redundancies where they may exist. It also does away with double efforts for customers and vendors, and preserves backward compatibility and operating system independence.
Fieldbus Foundation president and CEO Rich Timoney praised the ECT and FDT organisations for joining forces to achieve an open, unified FDI solution. “The FDI project is a key priority for the global automation community, which is implementing intelligent instrumentation technology at a growing pace at plants and factories around the world,” said Timoney. “Working together, major control equipment suppliers and user organisations are developing a device integration framework that will meet the requirements of diverse industry stakeholders.”
The FDT Group joined the ECT as part of the 2007 agreement, and the two organisations are working together to achieve a common framework meeting the requirements of all parties. Future technology developments will use a subset of the OPC Unified Architecture (UA) within a client-server architecture. In addition, both groups have agreed to consolidate the advantages of EDDL and FDT technologies.
Ultimately, the FDI solution will ensure compatibility with existing EDDL- and Device Type Manager (DTM) based Device Descriptions (DDs). The solution will be applicable to any field device communication technology, as well as all hierarchical and heterogeneous network topologies
For more information visit www.fieldbus.org
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