We've got both kinds of wireless!

In the movie “The Blues Brothers,” the hapless band finds its way to Bob’s Country Bunker, desperately seeking a paying gig. Jake and Elwood are greeted by a perky hostess who proudly says they feature both kinds of music: country and western. In a recent release from Apprion, the company says its Ion system will be compatible with both Wireless HART and ISA 100.11a. Apprion’s equipment will be able to handle communication with both instrumentation level protocols, and convert that information to 802.11 backhaul networks. (Yes, I am aware there are additional wireless instrumentation level protocols just as I think there are other kinds of music.)

As Doug Donzelli, Apprion’s president and CEO puts it, “Without standards like ISA100 and WirelessHART, creating scalable applications based on wireless sensor networks would create islands of automation that would never deliver their full potential value. The only way wireless applications get traction in the industrial world is through the adoption of appropriate standards and the integration of those standards through platforms like our ION System that allow these wireless sensor networks to deliver data to the full range of operational, safety, and security applications.”

Note that Donzelli speaks of wireless standards as plural. While there has been some posturing from various vendors in the wireless instrumentation space behind one or the other, this will likely give way to more practical attitudes that both will probably survive and will need to be served. The fact that we have more than one fieldbus protocol for field instrumentation and both are served by most vendors hasn’t exactly brought the industry to its knees. (Anyone who still says that his or her company hasn’t adopted fieldbus networking simply because the industry can’t get its act together has lost touch with the situation.)

Every manufacturer doesn’t make every device for 4-20 mA with HART and Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus, but there are enough to serve most markets adequately. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect creating radio modules for both Wireless HART and 11a wouldn’t be all that different from supporting two fieldbus protocols. Maybe that isn’t the best possible world from the vendor side, but there are users who actually have a preference for one fieldbus protocol over the other and appreciate having the choice. Some like FF for its control in the field capabilities. Others like Profibus because it interfaces so easily with other types of networks. Wireless users will likely make similar choices and should have the ability to do so.