EC: Electronic Marshalling

Network Integration - I/O systems - Emerson Process Management - Electronic Marshalling enables I/O field wiring to land wherever you want, regardless of signal type or control strategy - eliminating the need for cross-wiring in marshalling cabinets. This is a Control Engineering 2011 Engineers' Choice (EC) Honorable Mention.

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DeltaV digital automation system's Electronic Marshalling decouples process design from the I/O infrastructure design, to easily incorporate late process changes into the control system. With Electronic Marshalling, each terminal block has a channel characterization module (CHARM), which includes an A/D converter and associated characterization for different types of analog and digital I/O.  Field wiring of any signal type can be terminated anywhere and characterized by the various CHARMs. A digital communication bus runs along the terminal strip to send device signal information to the redundant CHARM I/O card where I/O conditioning is complete. Any input value can be read by any DeltaV controller regardless of where the wiring is landed. DeltaV Electronic Marshalling eliminates the need for cross-wiring of the marshalling panel to the I/O cards.

Installation of Electronic Marshalling is easy, because it is similar to existing methods for terminating field wiring. No special training or expertise is needed to terminate wiring on the terminal blocks. An integrated  €œknife-edge € disconnect eliminates the worry over accidently induced faults during hot cutovers and maintenance.   

Trouble shooting of installation errors can be done on a channel-by-channel basis, because problems are isolated to a single channel , providing increased robustness. Because each CHARM comes fully equipped with the ability to read HART v7 data, intelligent field devices can be continuously monitored and quickly diagnosed. Redundancy ensures reliability: Redundant CHARM I/O Card; Redundant communications between CHARMs and the CHARM I/O Card; Redundant power between CHARM I/O Card to each CHARM; Redundant network communications between CAHRM I/O cards and controllers.    Every project has late changes that can have significant impact on cost and schedule. Making these late changes is now easier because new field wiring can be added to cabinets at any time with no impact on the control system architecture.     

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Emerson Process Management

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