Emerson and Siemens to Expand Interface Support

July 13, 2006
Technology exchange between the two companies will extend interoperability and end-user benefits.

Emerson Process Management and Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D) announced on July 11 their expansion of system interfaces to enable both companies to expand support of global fieldbus standards. The companies will exchange technology and engineering support to add the interfaces that extend their systems and software to offer customers expanded global interoperability and greater functionality. First products are expected to be available mid-2007.

The cooperation between Emerson, based in Austin, Texas, and Nuremberg, Germany-based Siemens A&D grew out of the work that both companies have done with user-supplier consortiums to deliver fully open and interoperable field instrumentation and electric drives using the newly enhanced global standard Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL).

Cooperation

Siemens will add interfaces to the company’s Simatic PCS 7 process control system and its Process Device Manager (PDM) tool to support Foundation Fieldbus standards, in addition to the Profibus and Hart standards they support today. This will enable Siemens to connect to the extensive array of Foundation Fieldbus instruments and valve controllers from Emerson, as well as devices from other companies that support Foundation Fieldbus.

Emerson will similarly expand its DeltaV and Ovation control systems, as well as the company’s AMS Suite: Intelligent Device Manager application, with an interface for Profibus DP and Profinet standards, in addition to the Foundation Fieldbus and Hart standards they support today. This will enable Emerson to connect to the extensive array of drives, motor starters, and other discrete devices from Siemens, as well as devices from other companies who support Profibus DP and Profinet.

“Foundation Fieldbus is the established global standard in process automation,“ commented John Berra, president of Emerson Process Management. “In manufacturing automation, especially in electric drives, Profibus DP and Profinet are the established standards. Addition of new fieldbus interfaces will enable Emerson to use enhanced EDDL to easily connect the rich functionality of Siemens’ drives to our AMS Device Manager and our automation systems. Extending the value of our asset management applications to more plant assets in this way is just one example of the benefit to customers of global standards.”

According to Anton S. Huber, member of the board at Siemens A&D, further harmonization of field device integration will prove advantages particularly in heterogeneous system landscapes. “Foundation Fieldbus, Hart and Profibus have become the communication standards worldwide. Users can choose from a variety of process instruments that have the interfaces to suit the control system concerned. The potential for improving plant efficiency lies, however, in further integration by the uniform EDDL communication technology and the respective software tools. We strongly support such activities.“

OPC UA too

Emerson and Siemens will also use in their host systems the pending OPC UA (OLE for Process Control Unified Architecture) standard from the OPC Foundation. The combination of EDDL and OPC UA for data exchange is recommended by the Fieldbus Foundation, Hart Communication Foundation and Profibus Nutzerorganisation.

The advantage of this technology is the consistent use of EDDL for data description and presentation to the user interface. EDDL is also used to describe the information exchange between any OPC server and OPC client applications, thereby attaining a major degree of independence from operating systems and their variants. Both companies will actively support development of the necessary OPC UA specifications and the enhancements of EDDL.

Sponsored Recommendations

Food Production: How SEW-EURODRIVE Drives Excellence

Optimize food production with SEW-EURODRIVE’s hygienic, energy-efficient automation and drive solutions for precision, reliability, and sustainability.

Rock Quarry Implements Ignition to Improve Visibility, Safety & Decision-Making

George Reed, with the help of Factory Technologies, was looking to further automate the processes at its quarries and make Ignition an organization-wide standard.

Water Infrastructure Company Replaces Point-To-Point VPN With MQTT

Goodnight Midstream chose Ignition because it could fulfill several requirements: data mining and business intelligence work on the system backend; powerful Linux-based edge deployments...

The Purdue Model And Ignition

In the automation world, the Purdue Model (also known as the Purdue reference model, Purdue network model, ISA 95, or the Automation Pyramid) is a well-known architectural framework...