Recent Posts
- 3.6 billion gallons per day
- China's new slogan
- India's lessons of high energy costs
- Risks of wireless pioneering
- Has oil peaked?
- Fighting global warming like sheep
- Go to a virtual trade show & conference
- Happy World Environment Day!
- Airlines struggle with fuel cost too
- GM acknowledges painful reality
Recent Comments
- Patrick Rafter on Go to a virtual trade show & conference
- Bubba210 on Where your gas money goes
- Mark on GM acknowledges painful reality
- Qukler on I am not a socialist
- rich merritt on I am not a socialist
Most Commented On
- Chinese pharma plants go un-inspected? (2)
- I am not a socialist (2)
- GM acknowledges painful reality (1)
- Go to a virtual trade show & conference (1)
- Where your gas money goes (1)
Archives
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
Blog
Who's driving the wireless standards?
June 27, 2007
As anyone knows who is paying the least attention to industrial wireless applications, there are standards in development presently that will influence how wireless instrumentation is used. Two that are particularly interesting are ISA SP-100 and WirelessHART. The latter was recently invited to make a presentation to the former, so Ron Helson and Wally Pratt described their activities at HART to the SP-100 committee. You can hear their discussion and see their presentation slides online. The presentation is interesting and informative enough to spend the required 45 or so minutes, although you can fast-forward as necessary.
HART's protocol is moving along faster than SP-100 and will likely be completed and ratified much sooner. The effect this will have on the SP-100 committee and the form their final standard takes has been a topic of speculation in many areas, but that's not the direction I want to consider.
In an unrelated discussion, I was talking to Bob Karschnia, one of Emerson Process Management's wireless experts. We were considering the nature of such activities, and Bob commented to the effect that most of the communication standards we use in process industries have been the result of companies in the business getting together and creating them. HART, Profibus, Foundation Fieldbus, OPC, etc., have grown up this way, and they are in daily use in countless locations. There's something about a market driven standard to be practical and effective. I suspect this will be the pattern for wireless as well.
Posted by Peter Welander on June 27, 2007 | Comments (0)