Oak Brook, IL —Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) has launched its Stardom process automation system in North America. Refinements have been made since introduction in Japan more than a year ago to make Stardom more appropriate for this marketplace, company representatives told Control Engineering's editors recently. In related news, Shell in Oman selected the system in the first major Stardom project in the Middle East, estimated to be worth 6 million euros.

Stardom is Yokogawa's "first network-based control system, a rugged autonomous control system that combines Foundation fieldbus H1 network, secure Internet, and communication technologies, as well as SCADA software, " the company says. Ben Chambers, Stardom business development manager for Yokogawa Corp. of America (YCA, Newnan, GA), says Stardom has been selling in the U.S. since September 2002. Stardom's functionality fits between a distributed control system (DCS) and PLCs, he says, though it isn't designed to replace YCA's existing DCS.

Stardom also communicates with Modbus and RS-232; DeviceNet and Profibus communications are coming later in 2003. It uses the OPC standard to communicate easily with other software and devices, and uses Sun Microsystems' Java to connect more easily to higher-level business systems, if needed, and deliver key business parameters in a secure Web browser. Also, the Stardom system completed all areas of the Fieldbus Foundation (Austin, TX) Host Interoperability Support Test (HIST) testing on Oct. 29, 2002.