Four major German automakers standardize on Profinet

Nuremberg, Germany —Four of Germany’s leading automotive companies recently agreed to support the Profinet industrial Ethernet standard. Profinet was developed and is administered by Profibus International, which is also responsible for the Profibus and Profisafe automation network technologies.

Speaking jointly at a Profibus International press conference during the SPS/IPC/Drives 2004 fair, representatives of Audi, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, and Volkswagen stated that their announcement is intended to encourage supplier companies to introduce Profinet-based systems quickly to meet the needs of next-generation automation systems in automotive manufacturing. Their goal is to achieve a fixed, uniform, vendor-neutral protocol, which also integrates safety technology. Standardization of the engineering tools for the communications bus is also required.

The four companies make up the Automation Initiative of German Domestic Automobile (AIDA) manufacturers organization. The group reportedly was established because today’s automation systems are heterogeneous and only compatible to a restricted extent. In addition, AIDA adds that fieldbus systems tend to have relatively limited bandwidth, and can restrict the distribution of automation components. Today, this requires additional resources and integration, and results in increased costs. AIDA said it believes that a common industrial Ethernet platform is the way to overcome these challenges in future automation systems, and has selected Profinet to do the job.

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