Two years after the last successful Ethernet-APL multi-vendor tests, Endress+Hauser has run a set of load tests tailored to meet customer-specific requirements and demonstrate that components from various manufacturers can be used to build a reliable system based on Profinet over Ethernet-APL.
For these tests, the requirements were defined by global chemical company BASF using devices from Endress+Hauser, Pepperl+Fuchs, R. Stahl, Phoenix Contact and Samson integrated into an Emerson control system.
The test scenarios on a network with the maximum number of devices successfully verified key performance metrics such as total net load and redundancy switchover times. According to Endress+Hauser, the tests met and even surpassed the required standards.
Gerd Niedermayer, senior expert, emerging automation technologies at BASF said, with the help of Endress+Hauser and the Profinet-APL partners participating in these tests, “we are able to optimize engineering, commissioning and lifecycle in BASF plants and save capex and opex costs.”
“With the success of this scalability test, the cooperating companies have again proven that the multi-vendor infrastructure is open, future-proof and ready for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)”, added Harald Müller, technical lead of Ethernet-APL and director technology at Endress+Hauser.
Endress+Hauser’s Profinet support for Netilion adds to the company’s support of Ethernet-based communication in industry to ensure remote access to process values and health diagnostics for all native and Profinet-APL devices.
Read more about how Netilion and other digital technologies are moving the needle on manufacturing productivity.
