Family-based network said to ease integration

By Control Engineering Staff July 6, 2006

Life may be easier for system integrators, machine builders, and end-users when they select industrial networks within the same family.

For instance, ODVA calls its Common Industrial Protocol, “CIP,” the only media-independent industrial protocol in the world. CIP is said to allows vendors, machine builders, system integrators, and end-users to “take full advantage of industrial Ethernet network technologies and integrate I/O control, configuration, diagnostics, information, safety, synchronization, and motion.”

The result, ODVA suggests, is seamless communication from the plant floor through the enterprise with a scalable, future-proof, and coherent architecture. Ultimately, this helps minimize engineering and installation, and maximize the end-user’s return on investment, the network organization says.

Other network “families” include those represented by Fieldbus Foundation and Profibus Trade Organization .

–Edited by Mark T. Hoske , Control Engineering editor in chief