Control Engineering

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Standards advance, but do users?
June 7, 2007

The other day I received a press release from Honeywell Process Solutions about their new ST 3000 Pressure Transmitter line, which it says "is the process industries' first to support HART 6, the HART Communication Foundation's latest digital communication protocol." Later they also point out that, "Experion was the first DCS to support HART 6 without any add-on devices or conversion tools."

I like pressure sensors as much as the next guy, but I have to say I was more interested in this new HART release. I went to the HART Website but I really couldn't find anything on the topic. So I dashed off an email to Liz Patranella at the Foundation and asked what it's all about.  Here's her reply:

"In answer to your question, HART 6 is the current version of the HART Field Communications Protocol. The Foundation continually enhances and upgrades the HART Protocol, making each new version completely backward compatible with all previous versions. This backward compatibility is the cornerstone of the technology. The initial HART 6 release was in April 2001 and there have been minor enhancements/releases since then.

Even though the HART 6 technology has been available for awhile, host systems were not HART 6 compatible immediately. However, Honeywell, Emerson and others now have HART 6 compatible host systems and have begun to release device management systems and instruments that are HART 6 compatible. The Honeywell press release announced their new HART 6-compatible pressure sensors. Honeywell is not the first to release HART 6 devices, but is certainly among the first.

The Foundation recently announced the completion of draft specifications for HART 7 and has released it to our members for review and approval. The most significant feature of this newest version of the HART Protocol is the addition of wireless capabilities to the technology."

So, my question is, why does it take so long for equipment suppliers to implement a change released in 2001? I know process industries are conservative by nature, but this seems a bit extreme. Perhaps the backward compatibility feature actually works against implementing a new version. I will do some research on this and see what I can turn up. Stay tuned.

Posted by Peter Welander on June 7, 2007 | Comments (0)