Wireless Standards for Process Automation

Wireless Field Network Standards

Emerson’s Wireless Field Network architecture is based on the proven industry standard of WirelessHART. Driven by the process manufacturing community, the WirelessHART standard is based on IEEE 802.15.4 and is approved by HART Communications Foundation (HART 7.1) and by the IEC (IEC/PAS 62591Ed.1).

Process instrumentation has vastly different wireless requirements from PC networks and consumer products; therefore, the WirelessHART standard was developed through the cooperative efforts of the member companies of the HART Communications Foundation, who are leaders in wireless technology and industry users. WirelessHART complements, but does not replace, wired HART technology, providing an additional capability that can benefit both existing wired applications and new monitoring and control applications. The entire range of Smart Wireless devices from Emerson are available with WirelessHART standard communications, as is AMS Suite predictive maintenance software and 375/475 handheld field communicators. The Smart Wireless platform also offers native connectivity to the DeltaV system.

The self-organizing, adaptive mesh routing capabilities of the field network is facilitated by industry standard radios (802.15.4) that continually “hop” across channels to avoid interference. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technology delivers high reliability in challenging radio environments. If an obstruction is introduced into the mesh network, devices will automatically find the best alternate communication path. This alternate path will be created and the information will continue to flow.

To learn more about Wireless Field Network Standards, click here.

Wireless Plant Network Standards

Emerson’s Wireless Plant Network architecture is based on the IEEE 802.11 “Wi-Fi” set of standards which are driven by the Information Technology community.

The industrial mesh access point is designed for industrial Wi-Fi deployments (Class 1, Division 2 / Zone 2. Group B, C, D). They support dual radio (802.11a, 802.11b/g) and have multiple power options (Power Over Ethernet, etc.). The mesh access points are compliant with Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), which employs hardware-based Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption between wireless nodes to provide end to- end, enterprise-class security.

Emerson, the global leader in process automation has partnered with Cisco, the global leader in networking to offer open-standard wireless solutions for the process industry.

To learn more about Wireless Plant Network Standards, click here.