• Ethernet-APL is the last mile for digital communication into the field.

• Why you don’t need data but information.

• Understand the benefits of a unified Infrastructure.

Aim for full flexibility

Digitization is not an end in itself. It is a method to improve the economic operation of a plant. The struggle for economic plants has many aspects during the whole life cycle. At least it includes faster planning, engineering and setup. These aspects lead to a shorter time to market. But also during the operation the maintenance and the management of change should be more efficient. These costs are relevant during the entire lifetime of a plant and they easily exceed the initial cost. All in all it’s always about the smallest possible investment and the maximum profit which leads to the need for more flexibility.

Striving for more flexibility is as old as automation itself. And it’s a hard struggle as the balance between cost and benefits has to be found.

For instance the development of Remote IO where the type of IO can be configured and which are connected to a Controller via a flexible network is a good idea. It holds the chance to change the planning and operation of plants pretty easy. But at the end of the day this leads to an oversizing of the IO solution so it’s only half of a step into the right direction. The full step to more flexibility is to offer a universal communication platform which connects all automation devices like sensors, actuators, controllers, safety PLCs, AMS etc.

Some limits

For sure automation solutions are as individual as the different plants. So the above hinted solution is a general direction. Here are 2 limits shown as examples:

1. At the moment it is not realistic to equip simple contacts with a network access. This would be much too expensive at the moment. Here a minimized remote IO solution still is the best fit.

2. One universal communication platform, that directly connects “everything” sounds very promising. But segregation holds benefits in terms of safety and security. These aspects have to be considered. Still it is a good idea to use the same communication platform. For example the rededication of field devices is very easy and supports than efficient management of change.

The road to flexible automation

Ethernet in Automation has been a hype in automation from the year 2000. Now it is acknowledged to be the most flexible communication solution. Ethernet proofed its robustness, availability and universality. The logical enhancement for the present Ethernet physical layer is Ethernet-APL. This simple 2 wire physical layer with a bit rate of 10Mbit enables the seamless connection of intelligent devices even into Ex-Zone 1.

Ethernet-APL is ready to connect any standard ethernet based protocols. It offers the full flexibility to integrate devices based on open (safety) protocols and vendor specific (safety) protocols. Both offer advantages, e.g. safeethernet offer specialized functionalities like huge amount of date, routing, full redundancy and reload. Open protocols offer the consequent expansion with best of breed devices. The future-proof Ethernet-APL even offers the opportunity to enable visionary solutions like control in the field.

Conclusion

This contribution envisions the potential of Ethernet-APL. It shows the advantages of unifying the infrastructure of safety and non-safety. This is made possible while maintaining full separation and thus maximum availability and safety. This is done consistently throughout the entire plant with full transparency of the data over the entire life cycle of the plant. In this way, future solutions in process automation can be created that enable minimum complexity with maximum cost-effectiveness.

A prerequisite for this is that field devices are integrated in the plants across the board via Ethernet-APL and that the necessary product portfolio for (safety) applications is also available

This talk will be given by Stefan Ditting of HIMA.

For more than 15 years Stefan Ditting has been Product Manager for industrial communication (Ethernet, safeethernet and field busses). He is also responsible for the safety system HIMatrix. He has been dealing with cybersecurity for industrial automation from the perspective of products since 2006 .

Stefan Ditting studied electrical engineering (automation technology) in Stuttgart until 1993. He then gained several years of practical experience as an automation engineer in the field of factory automation, worked as a trainer and later switched to product management.

Data to Information – boosting Safety and Reliability