"Wireless Anywhere” Concept Expands Use of Field Wireless Systems Based on the ISA100.11a Standard

Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Netherlands) have announced the introduction of a new “Wireless Anywhere” business concept on the plant-wide use of ISA100.11a*1 compliant wireless communication technologies for both monitoring and control applications. Yokogawa will aggressively promote this concept to widen the use of ISA100.11a-compliant products and related services. This augments their existing “Grow” concept, which encourages the introduction of wireless communication technologies by making a case for their inherent reliability, flexibility, and openness.

The ISA100.11a standard ensures high reliability, application flexibility, network expandability, and compatibility with a variety of wired communication standards such as FOUNDATION fieldbus, HART, and PROFIBUS. “ISA100.11a full functional” field wireless network systems and devices make use of state-of-the-art dual redundant technologies that enable a much higher level of reliability, and allow massive scalability and long-range

By following up on the Grow concept with this announcement of the Wireless Anywhere concept, Yokogawa is advocating the use of “ISA100.11a full functional” field wireless systems throughout plants. To this end, Yokogawa will pursue the following three initiatives:

Modularising wireless components to accelerate product development. Yokogawa will develop modularised wireless components that incorporate the various technologies in its field wireless devices. This will make it easier for vendors to implement the ISA100.11a technology in new sensor products, and accelerate time to market. By the end of 2013 Yokogawa plans to begin releasing new field wireless devices with these components.

Promoting adoption of the ISA100.11a standard. Yokogawa will work with other members of the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (ISA100WCI) to increase the number of WCI member companies and promote acceptance of the ISA100.11a standard, thereby expanding the field wireless market. To make a wider range of ISA100.11a-compliant products available to the market, Yokogawa may supply modularized components to other vendors.

Facilitating host connectivity for both wired and wireless field networks. To encourage the use of field wireless systems in both monitoring and control applications, Yokogawa will seek to improve the effectiveness of plant-wide field digital networks by making it possible for wired and wireless field devices and systems to connect with host monitoring and control systems. This will necessitate the development of technologies that will ensure host systems and field devices can communicate with each other using a variety of protocols. For example, an ISA100.11a-compliant adapter would enable a wired field device to link up with a wireless network.

For continuous processes that need sophisticated wireless control technologies, Yokogawa released the world’s first ISA100.11a compliant system devices and transmitters in July 2010, giving customers an expanded range of device choices. In July 2012, Yokogawa released a reliable, large-scale field wireless system for plant use.

Such systems ensure responses in real time by making use of state-of-the-art dual redundant technologies and can be quite large in scale, supporting connections to up to 500 field wireless devices. The data update time is 5 seconds when the system consists of a host system and 500 field wireless devices, and 1 second with a host system and 200 field wireless devices. The field wireless devices are proven to be able to communicate over distances up to 10 km*2, 20 times the range of conventional systems.