Collaboration: 2 companies agree to develop for Profinet

Mannheim, Germany , and Blomberg, Germany — ABB and

Phoenix Contact

recently signed an agreement for a long-term strategic cooperation to develop and promote

Profinet

and Ethernet-Technology. The purpose, they say, is to develop Profinet as a global industrial standard throughout complementary manufacturing areas of process and discrete automation. Broadly implemented in discrete manufacturing, Profinet offers flexible and economical means to integrate intelligent devices and also multiple fieldbuses, the companies say.

The two companies will collaborate to enhance Profinet for use in process industries. Phoenix Contact’s subsidiary KW-Software will take responsibility for the technical integration of the Profinet technology.

“This frame agreement is an important milestone for ABB,” sayss more quickly, easily, and inexpensively.”

The companies describe the industrial Ethernet protocol as follows. The Profinet Industrial Ethernet standard for automation includes plant-wide fieldbus communication, plant-to-office communication, and equipment-to-equipment integration. Profinet can simultaneously handle standard TCP/IP transmissions and real-time transmissions at sub-millisecond speeds. It embraces industry standards such as Ethernet, TCP/IP, XML, and OPC. Using proxy technology it connects other fieldbuses in addition to Profibus and protects existing investments in plant equipment and networks. More than a fieldbus, it provides a way to integrate disparate control equipment without programming. More than 100 engineers from at least 50 companies work in 20 distinct working groups to advance Profinet.

Commenting on the development of the standard, Carl Henning, deputy director, PTO,

Profibus

and Profinet North America, told Control Engineering: “This is clearly one more sign of the increasing adoption rate of Profinet, not just in the discrete automation market, but in the process market as well. (Emerson had already announced its support for Profinet in 2006, as Control Engineering reported previously.)how DeviceNet and Interbus connections, which are also available.)  As the picture shows, you can also connect many devices directly to Profinet.  Profinet is the unifying technology for vendors and users.

Henning continues: “Note that Phoenix Contact is closely identified with Interbus, but elected to use Profinet as its Industrial Ethernet as opposed to creating an Ethernet version of Interbus. On a global scale, this is bigger news than ODVA and Modbus IDA getting together to create a gateway from Modbus to Ethernet/IP,” Henning contends. “We’ve had gateways from Modbus to Profinet for a long time.”

Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor, helped with this report.

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