Have you ever stopped to think about how data from a temperature transmitter on a vessel
in a tank farm at the edge of the plant
is brought into the control system?
You probably would answer:
Over a pair of wires connected between the transmitter and an analog input card.
And until recently, you would be correct.
But did you really think about how those wires would be installed?
Buried underground in a conduit?
Run overhead in a cable tray?
In each case, environmental factors, water infiltration,
electromagnetic interference,
or physical damage could interrupt,
destroy, or affect the accuracy and reliability of the temperature signal.
There is a better, more secure way to transmit these signals from distant,
or even not so distant transmitters and devices,
to the control system without having to worry about circuitous conduit routings,
damage to wire from difficult cable pulls,
expensive buried cable runs,
or conduits and pull boxes filling with water.
ISA100 Wireless is an end user driven, industry standard based,
cyber secure, robust, wireless protocol
for interfacing devices such as temperature transmitters
to control systems for process monitoring and control.
ISA100 allows the user to avoid problems
such as accidentally cutting wires in the field,
short circuits in underground installations,
and corroded terminals due to environmental contaminants.
You may ask,
But I have a cell phone and it drops connections periodically.
My WiFi at home is interrupted for no apparent reason.
When I go to the basement, only a few feet away,
my signal is reduced to where it is sometimes slow or unusable.
So how can I say that ISA100 is reliable and secure?
Simple. ISA100 is not WiFi, 5G, or Bluetooth;
it is different than any home or commercial wireless network.
Those technologies were designed for portable, rechargeable devices
that transmit a lot of data.
Your wireless smartphone plan likely is set up for 10 gigabytes of data
or more each month.
A transmitter on an ISA100 wireless network
may only transmit 1 or 2 megabytes of data per month,
a tiny fraction of the data typically exchanged with a smartphone.
ISA100 Wireless was designed specifically
for Industrial Internet of Things, or IIoT, applications.
In a simple sense, think of IIoT applications
as ones that replace wired devices with wireless devices,
with the mode of data transmission being accomplished wirelessly
instead of over a wired network.
A tank, a column,
or a reactor that would traditionally use wired sensors, transmitters, and analyzers
can now communicate to controllers, servers,
and other devices via ISA100 Wireless.
Is ISA100 as reliable as a wired network?
Yes. ISA100 has a set of features
that allow it to be used in mission critical applications
typically not supported by other wireless technologies.
The ISA100 protocol was developed to provide a holistic protocol
to meet the needs of industry,
both now and in the future.
What are the needs of industry?
Cybersecurity.
Data integrity.
Operational reliability.
How does ISA100 provide for these needs?
First, the ISA100 standard was developed by experts from over 250 companies
representing end users, technology providers, suppliers, and others.
Secondly, ISA100 supports a mesh network,
a robust architecture where nearby devices can act as local repeaters,
providing multiple pathways between devices and gateways.
In a mesh network, the more devices that exist on an ISA100 network,
the more pathways exist for communication,
providing an added level of redundancy,
reliability, and robustness.
ISA100 provides for management and network provisioning tools
that allow new devices to be added to the network easily and securely.
Third, the ISA100 protocol has been designed from top to bottom
to provide reliability, operability, and security.
Many other wireless protocols were adapted from other existing protocols,
and although they may provide improvements over the base protocols,
they cannot provide the level of reliability
and security a holistically designed, ground up design can provide.
Fourth, vendors who supply ISA100 devices
must undergo rigorous testing
to verify that their devices meet the requirements of the ISA100 standard.
Certification by the ISA100 Compliance Institute
ensures that a vendor’s device can interoperate
with all other ISA100 compliant devices
seamlessly in an ISA100 network.
Where would I use ISA100?
The simple answer is anywhere that wired devices are used.
With over 18 industry-leading vendors
supplying ISA100 compliant devices to the marketplace,
ISA100 networks can be installed for process monitoring,
process control, gas detection, corrosion monitoring,
steam trap health monitoring, safety systems, wellhead monitoring, and others.
ISA100 Wireless has been used in many industries,
including chemical, oil and gas, pulp and paper,
pharmaceutical, mining, and renewable energy, as well as others.
Sensors to measure pH, temperature, pressure, valve position,
flow, dissolved oxygen, and others
are currently available for use in ISA100 networks.
New sensor designs are being introduced all the time.
With so many ISA100 compliant devices,
users have the ability to select best of breed products
from top tier global industry vendors
and have the confidence that each can be added
to an ISA100 Wireless network seamlessly and predictably.
In this video, I introduced ISA100,
what it is, how it is used,
and what makes it different from other wireless networks.
In the next part, I will illustrate a couple of use cases
that used ISA100 Wireless,
highlighting the benefits and advantages of using the ISA100 Wireless standard.
To learn more about ISA100
head on over to isa100wci.org.
We’ll add a link to the video description as well.
If you have any questions about ISA100
or industrial wireless networks in general
add them in the comments below.
As you know, we read each and every comment
and reply to it in less than 24 hours!