Three-year project expects to make wireless technologies better suitable for all industrial needs by....
Together with Research Unit for Integrated Sensor Systems of the Austrian Academy of Sciences , connectBlue says it has committed itself to a three year project with the aim to make wireless technologies even better suitable for industrial needs by developing needed infrastructure for wireless automation on the factory floor.
Called flexWare (Flexible Wireless Automation in Real-Time Environments), the project’s goals include enhancing the existing industrial infrastructure for wireless integration, and extending existing technologies to better comply with the tough requirements of industrial use, such as real-time response, robustness, failure protection, etc.
“Compared to the situation today, flexWare will enable the possibility for inter-work between wireless nodes without restrictions in security and scalability,” explained Mats Andersson, CTO of connectBlue. “The concept will facilitate dynamic reconfiguration of the network, which in turn, will allow for a guaranteed real-time behavior which is a key component in industrial applications. flexWare will also make use of localization and advanced time synchronization functionality making the installation even more robust.”
Once the flexWare project is completed, the company says it will be possible to operate and control factories using wireless networks. A fundamental requirement for this completion is a reliable, credible, and synchronized communication. Therefore, the project aims to close any existing technological gaps between industry automation and wireless technology.
The project is planned for three years. Project partners of Research Unit for Integrated Sensor Systems of the Austrian Academy of Sciences are comprised of research institutes as well as industrial companies: Institut Industrial IT (inlIT) (Germany), Institut für Automsierung und Kommunikation Automation and Communication e.V. (ifak) Magdeburg (Germany), connectBlue AB (Sweden), Oregano Systems Design and Consulting (Austria), University of Catania (Italy), Schneider Electric Industries SAS (France) and rt-solutions.de GmbH (Germany).
— edited by C.G. Masi , senior editor
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