EtherCAT: the rock in the surf of digital transformation
Technews Industry Guide: Industrial Internet of Things & Industry 4.0
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Industry 4.0 is the digital transformation that is characterised as the fourth industrial revolution. The perception of a revolution is that it is a fast process, dramatically changing the current situation within months, not years. However, industrial revolutions are comparatively slow processes. The first industrial revolution – the transition from agricultural to industrial society – took over 100 years. Although the fourth revolution is much faster, it is also a process that will take decades to become fully operational.
A large part of Industry 4.0’s concepts and approaches are based on industrial communication: data must be collected at the manufacturing processes, condensed and then sent upwards into databases, towards servers, and into cloud based systems. Conversely, commands and recipes are sent to the machine and plant controllers, which then implement and execute them. In order to manage and control this amount of data, a hierarchical architecture and structure is required. At the field level, it is important to communicate in hard real-time, whereas further up the time requirements are more relaxed. And currently, in particular at the level between the controllers, servers and Internet services, much is still unclear with regards to the communication technologies. OPC UA with its different protocol variants continues to gain ground at this level, but device profiles and real-time capability are still missing. TSN is a promising emerging technology, but it is not yet finalised, and there is still specification work to be done, especially for the system configuration. Different cloud protocols, encoding schemes and cloud providers are competing and unified interfaces have not yet been established.
So it is good that things look different at the field level: EtherCAT is stable, widely adopted and ideally prepared for the challenges of digital transformation. The EtherCAT technology has outstanding characteristics, including leading performance, high flexibility and open interfaces. As a result, EtherCAT is inherently suited to meet and exceed the requirements of the digital transformation. The exceptional performance of the technology allows one to add Big Data applications to control networks. In addition, the flexibility of EtherCAT makes it possible to establish cloud connectivity in existing systems without having to alter the control system, or manually update the network devices. The open interfaces permit the easy integration of any IT-based protocol within the master, or directly into the slave devices. Ultimately, this enables direct connection from the sensor to the cloud without protocol discontinuities, regardless of which protocol eventually becomes the winner on the level above the EtherCAT system.
For more information contact EtherCAT Technology Group, +49 911 540 56 226, [email protected], www.ethercat.org
Further reading:
Comprehensive solutions for the food and beverage sector
RS South Africa
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
RS South Africa is reinforcing its commitment to the country’s dynamic food and beverage sector, backed by a comprehensive portfolio of over 800 000 products, extensive technical expertise and end-to-end service capabilities.
Read more...
Case History 198: Cascade control overcomes valve problems
Michael Brown Control Engineering
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
A large petrochemical refinery asked me to perform an audit on several critical base layer control loops. This article deals with a problem found on a valve controlling the flow of fuel to a heat exchanger.
Read more...
Improved networking technology for fire and gas detection
Omniflex Remote Monitoring Specialists
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Critical alarm and event management technology supplier, Omniflex has worked with the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation to upgrade equipment providing digital and analogue signals for its safety critical fire and gas alarm systems.
Read more...
PC-based control for fertiliser
Beckhoff Automation
Editor's Choice Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
On a farm in the USA, valuable ammonia is extracted from slurry and processed into ammonium sulphate. NSI Byosis has transformed this complex process into a flexible modular system. This modular approach requires an automation solution with flexible scalability in both hardware and software, which this Dutch company has found in PC-based control from Beckhoff.
Read more...
Loop signature 28: Things to consider when tuning.
Michael Brown Control Engineering
Editor's Choice Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
I was giving a course at a remote mine in the middle of the Namibian desert. We were discussing tuning responses, and as I always do on my courses, I mentioned that in my opinion ¼ amplitude damped tuning is not desirable, and is in fact not good.
Read more...
How industrial network design impacts ESG commitments
Omniflex Remote Monitoring Specialists
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
In safety-critical industries like nuclear, petrochemical and oil and gas, installing a new industrial cable network is an extremely complicated task. Gary Bradshaw, a director of industrial network specialist, Omniflex explains why this is often unnecessary as plants are likely to have existing cabling capable of being used to create new industrial networks.
Read more...
Minelert industrial solutions
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Profitek provides cutting-edge industrial networking, automation and IoT solutions for harsh environments.
Read more...
The ultimate industrial LoRaWAN gateway
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The GW-101-LORA-4AO is the ultimate industrial LoRaWAN gateway, combining advanced IoT connectivity with expandable I/O.
Read more...
Industrial Power-over-Ethernet DC injector
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The ML-NET-INJECT series sets the standard for industrial PoE, featuring IP68-rated RJ45 connectors and military-grade components for extreme reliability.
Read more...
Industrial networking IO-Link
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Balluff IO-Link Network Modules enable seamless, intelligent communication between sensors, actuators and control systems. Designed for Industry 4.0, they provide real-time data exchange, simplify wiring, and enhance diagnostics.
Read more...
printer friendly version