3 October 2007

Automation industry: Users still worry, but wireless here to stay

By Ellen Fussell Policastro

The first word that comes to Ivan Ward’s mind when you say wireless is “expensive.”  Ward works at ConocoPhilips in Farmington, N.M. He said since it gets more difficult to deal with cabling when you are adding facilities to one area, his company is “looking into it.”

Wireless is one of the words of the day, or week, here at ISA EXPO. If they are not using it, people are at least talking about it. Chris Allen with Delta Controls in Surrey, U.K., said it is “definitely something we need to get on top of. It’s all over the show,” he said. Allen’s company makes pressure transmitters and switches. He said wireless “probably wouldn’t be suitable with pressure switches, but could work well with pressure transmitters. “We’re exhibiting here at EXPO, but I’ll be taking all that in,” he said. “I’ll be looking at the protocols for industrial standards. We don’t want to back the wrong horse.”

Wireless is literally all over the show, as Peter Fuhr, chief technology officer with Apprion in Moffett Field, Calif., can prove. He has a spectrum analyzer that monitors radio frequency traffic throughout the EXPO. At the ISA100 Wireless booth 1970, there is a real-time screen portrayal of wireless use at EXPO. “The density here is crazy; every booth has antennas!” The screen at the ISA100 booth shows all the radio frequency in real time, specifically in one arena, in 2.4 to 2.5 gigahertz bands. “Why? Because it’s license free, so it’s really popular,” he said. “Even in the presence of all this interference, the wireless sensor signals are still getting through, and this shows how reliable the wireless sensor here is.”

“Overall, wireless is actually becoming more acceptable at its basic level,” said Hesh Kagan, director of technology marketing services at Invensys Process Systems in Foxboro, Mass. “Last year, people were prepared to experiment with wireless. This year, they’re prepared to start implementing solutions,” he said.

“People want to actually solve problems now versus proving wireless will work,” said Steve Lambright, chief executive of Apprion. Instead of “trepidatious pilot projects,” people are using wireless with more confidence and maturity, Kagan said. “You’re starting to see wireless move from a science experiment toward a viable technology. Now that people have gained experience, they’re learning “their competitor is using wireless, so they better watch out,” Kagan said.

High on data rate

Brent McAdams is seeing more manufacturers who were traditionally concerned with low-data-rate serial radios going to wireless Ethernet, which is a higher data-rate technology. McAdams is business development manager with FreeWave in Boulder, Colo. “The trend has always been low-data-rate serial radios,” he said. “There’s been a push from end users and manufacturers to high-data-rate Ethernet radios. With serial technology, you could only do one communication at a time. There was a poll (request for data) and a response,” he said. “But with Ethernet, you have more connections at one time, more polls, and more responses.”

While wireless is making its mark technologically, there are still some hurdles to clear when it comes to operations and IT playing together, Kagan said. “In the past, there was a separation between what happened in the control and business world,” he said. In wireless, radio waves go where they want to, so they have to be managed in a highly integrated manner.”

“It can’t be a free-for-all,” Lambright said. “For the first time, you’re really seeing how this integration forces IT to work with process engineering teams and operations groups.” And that’s when you encounter some challenges, he said. “It can work great, and you can see an opposite extreme.”

Security making moves

End users are still focusing on security with wireless as well, McAdams said. “They’re concerned about encryption, radius control, and authentication.” Looking for higher levels of security, all manufacturers are tailoring their devices with encryption using the advanced encryption standard (AES). “There’s 128 AES and 256 AES,” he said. “The bigger the bits means there’s a bigger area to scramble data. As the encryption key increases, [hackers] would have a hard time [breaking in].”

Also there is the ability to have a MAC address filtering the associated IP address with the physical address of the machine. “If the address is in that table, it will communicate; if it’s not, it won’t,” he said. The MAC address is a hard-coded address in a device. The table resides in the radio. “You plug into the radio with Ethernet. If the IP address is not in the table, it will not allow access.”

McAdams said major gas producers and chemical refining markets can benefit from this technology. “It becomes costly to run conduit and wire,” he said. “So with wireless, there’s an immediate payback.”

Standards help bring about change and acceptance of the technology, Kagan said. “With WINA, WirelessHART, and ISA100, there’s more education out there. People are finding out it’s not that hard, and the benefits are real.”

However, all is not rosy in the standards world. “With all these consortiums springing up, I’m seeing the same companies,” said Bill Hodson, president of Hodson Consulting in Telford, Penn. “You think they would have learned their lesson in the fieldbus wars, when the technology was held back because of lack of a standard. This is yet another fieldbus war, where everyone loses because there is no standard. And without a standard, users will be reluctant to invest in wireless. Vendors who think they’re going to win will all end up losing.”

Next year, wireless will see more integration as applications become deployed, Lambright said. “That will spur more rapid adoption of wireless. The cycle will emerge; networks will deliver the ability to pursue new applications they couldn’t have in the past, especially with condition monitoring and safety applications.”

“Up until now, we’ve been spending time on the technology,” Kagan said. “This time next year, we’ll be focusing more on solutions.”

For related information, go to www.isa.org/networks.