Emerson makes wireless move

Emerson wants to go wireless. Or so it seems, as company President John Berra unveiled at the ARC Advisory Group Forum here in Orlando, Fla., the process control giant’s plans for bringing manufacturers into the wireless realm.
As most can recall from the ISA EXPO 2005, wireless is a huge hot point for those in the industry.
This big initiative from Emerson just goes to show there are manufacturers that need wireless, for things like predictive maintenance, or finding blind spots in your plant where you don’t take measurements or getting diagnostic information from devices that have the capability, but a manufacturer never uses.
However, being quick to change is not an industry strong point. Berra talked about the five “big concerns” manufacturers have with using wireless. Security, power, standards, robustness, and environment.
“Wireless is not deeply ingrained in the process industries,” Berra said. “We believe we have solved all these problems.”
Line of sight and the built in barriers to using wireless have also been an impediment against using wireless. Berra talked about a self organizing network for in plant needs so line of sight is not a concern.
With this technology, “you can get around the stationary canyons of metal and the moving canyons of metal,” he said.
Also part of Emerson’s goal is to have their wireless system able to connect with HART instruments to allow for greater diagnostic capabilities.
Emerson has not released any products yet, but plans to during the summer.