Rockwell, OMRON, SICK will develop safety standard

Deerfield Beach, Florida – Speaking at the Open DeviceNet Vendors Association (ODVA) conference here, TUV Rheinland’s Heinz Gall proclaimed that machine design will soon undergo a significant paradigm shift as network architectures replace old hard wire safety systems.

"Regulations are also driving users to expand their implementation of safety systems. Technical providers and users need to understand the importance of global standards and safety certifications to take advantage of this upcoming technology," said Gall.

TUV is a German testing and standards organization. TUV is Technischer Ueberwachungsverein (Technical Inspection Association). Gall works with safety related applications and is a member of IEC 61508 and IEC 61511.

Three ODVA members and global automation and machine safety companies – Rockwell Automation, OMRON Corporation, and SICK AG – are collaborating on the development of an open protocol for safety communications.

Based on the existing control and information protocol (CIP) found in DeviceNet, ControlNet, and EtherNet/IP, the new safety protocol extension has received concept approval by TUV Rheinland.

Consisting of an extension to the existing CIP protocol, CIP Safety will allow both standard and safety devices to operate on the same network. It will also allow safety devices to seamlessly communicate across other CIP-based standard networks, such as DeviceNet, ControlNet, and EtherNet/IP networks, to other safety devices with no additional programming.

The companies claim this routing feature, which is not available today for safety communications, won’t need expensive safety specific hardware like gateways and bridges.

CIP Safety's first implementation will be over DeviceNet, and will provide fail-safe communication between nodes such as safety input/output blocks, safety interlock switches, safety light curtains, and safety PLCs.

CIP Safety will work in safety applications up to safety integrity level (SIL) 3 according to IEC 61508 standards. The companies expect to introduce the first DeviceNet Safety solutions in 2004.