The Johannesburg branch held its Technology Evening on 8 June, where Gary Friend, chairman of the Foundation Fieldbus Southern African Marketing Committee (FFSAMC), presented an overview of Foundation fieldbus and the efforts of the FFSAMC to ensure that there is proper training available so that users and potential users gain maximum benefit from this technology.
Johan Grobler (l) with Bjorn Matthews of the University of Pretoria, recipient of the Schneider Electric/SAIMC award for his thesis on robots and artificial intelligence
Foundation fieldbus has been around for many years, but has not had much publicity in South Africa until recently. Part of the problem is lack of knowledge about the advantages that the technology can offer.
It is an all-digital, serial, two-way communications system that serves as the
base-level network in a plant or factory automation environment. Based on an open architecture developed and administered by the Fieldbus Foundation, it is targeted for applications using basic and advanced regulatory control and for much of the discrete control associated with those functions, mostly in the process industry.
Foundation fieldbus was originally intended as a replacement for the 4-20 mA standard and today it coexists alongside other technologies such as Modbus, Profibus, and industrial Ethernet. Today it enjoys a growing installed base in many heavy process applications such as refining, petrochemicals, power generation, food, beverage, pharmaceuticals and nuclear applications.
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