The SPS/IPC/Drives is always a window into the technological future of automation and manufacturing. This blog features some examples of trends that ARC analysts observed and consider relevant to automation markets and manufacturing. We name some examples below, but want to remind you, dear reader, that there are always multiple solutions available for each technological trend.
Safety and Security
It seems already old fashioned, but automation suppliers are still at the beginning of offering safety technology compared to what would be possible. Also users and OEMs are only just starting to integrate safety technology and use it as a value-add instead of cost factor.
First things first: the automation market is moving slowly, especially looking at machine safety, where integrated safety is not only dependent on new machinery development, something that happens only every 15 to 25 years, but also requires a new mindset by developers and engineers – something that happens even less frequently. As an example, Sercos International announced about three years ago plans to adopt CIP Safety from ODVA, but there are still no known products available.
At this year’s show, there were many more products presented to the public and the trend is going clearly in the direction of more diverse and holistic product portfolios of different suppliers. This is true for all kinds of field devices supporting the various protocols, such as CIP Safety, Profisafe, OpenSafety, or Safety over Ethercat.
Most notably, B&R has shaken up the market with its plan to make the Open Safety protocol a common protocol for all networks. Open Safety is a protocol that runs on top of the network stack at the application layer, and therefore can be used in all devices, regardless of the original network protocol used and regardless of automation supplier brand. Open Safety is being pushed in the market by B&R and Nestlé is helping to drive the initiative by pointing out the benefits of using a single, common safety protocol. Both companies have also contributed to the revival of OMAC to push technology to a more supplier independent platform.
Security is a hot topic, but current solutions are quite diverse; built-in security is rare. Many smaller to mid size IPC manufacturers have not taken up the topic yet and rely on customers to solve the issue, which could be a threat to future business. One exception is Ads-tec, which at least offers an industrial firewall.
Bigger companies are in general better equipped to address the security issue. ARC is frequenty featuring blogs on this issue.
Energy Management
Energy Management has become a hot topic. It was featured by nearly all suppliers including field device specialists, PLC suppliers, or holistic automation suppliers such as Rockwell Automation, Siemens, or Schneider Electric.
There was also an interesting podium discussion, featuring ABB, Festo, Siemens, and Endress+Hauser, that focused on the low hanging fruits -- projects with low risks, quick ROI, and low initial investment. This also includes visualizing energy demand, where the participants agreed on this, already 5 percent could be saved, just by increasing awareness. ARC’s experience in this field supports this value, but we also have seen significantly higher savings.
ARC has developed a framework of active and passive energy management. Passive energy management is not changing the production process itself, but reduces the energy consumption by using more efficient technologies, such as AC Drives or energy efficient motors, or simply better isolations and better maintenance. A good example for active energy management, the adjustment of the production process to energy costs and availability are increasingly cement mills, as ABB pointed out, which are increasingly shifting production beyond 6 pm, in order to use the cheaper electricity at night.
More efficient engineering frameworks
Siemens was part of this development when the company introduced the TIA portal last year (see blog), but this development is continuing. Before the SPS/IPC/Drives show, 3S introduced a new application composer and developer kit. Application developers around the world from all sectors use the IEC 61131-3 development system CoDeSys for their daily work. To make development more efficient, 3S-Smart Software Solutions, the manufacturer of CoDeSys headquartered in Kempten, Germany, now offers two new product lines.
ARC is convinced that this development will continue and will give automation suppliers the chance to differentiate. It is driven not only by technology vendors, but mainly by users, who need to apply their engineering resources more efficiently. More efficient engineering goes down to the sensor level, where IO-Link does not only offer new features, but also adds complexity. To address this Renesas and TMG have developed an IO-Link master (TMG providing the Ethernet Stacks, engineering tool, and fieldbus integration and Renesas providing the micro controller, which is a 2 port chip scalable to 32 bit uplink controller), which can be implemented with the Siemens TIA portal engineering system.
To speak of a perfect world, collaboration in development must be seamless among different systems. However, this would even span further and include the standardization in mechanical and electrical automation as it all traces back.
Distributed Automation:
On day two, I was not able to avoid a press conference with Mr. Hilscher, head of the self-named company based in Hattersheim, Germany. For me, the most interesting press conference was the conference of Renesas, where the company introduced the future roadmap, which will mainly use PI technology from IO-Link to Profinet. The company is the fifth largest player in the semiconductor market just behind Texas Instruments (TI) which is also active in the industrial market. Strategic focus of Renesas in Europe are Sensors and Ethernet.
Currently solutions for all leading Ethernet standards are offered, though EPSG and Ethercat are still missing. In early 2011, Renesas in collaboration with Phoenix Contact introduced the TSP-1 aka Tiger chip, samples and starter kits are now available. Now, there is also a collaboration involving KW software, a fully owned Phoenix Contact subsidiary. Renesas also introduced dual-core microcontroller family for drives and motion and a high-accuracy Etherent PHY family for IEEE 1588. The new micro controller is the highest performance MCU for industrial inverter applications, not only high end performance, but also network on chip, for example Profibus and Profinet.
The partnership of Renesas and Hilscher will result in the netX 4000, a new 40nm high-end ARM platform. The price of the chip will be around 10€. The performance is comparable with a smart phone performance. The netX 4000 will be exclusively marketed by Hilscher, the sample date is Q2 2013, usually production starts half year after testing. This represents a next step for the company as Hilscher, which is currently focused on communication technology and interfaces. The Controller has new functionality integrated. Now, I have a question: Do we need a PLC in future?
