AUTOMATION suppliers and foundations have joined the Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) Cooperation Team in a bid to hasten the adoption of Field Device Integration (FDI) technology.
Essentially, the EDDL Cooperation Team will be merged into the FDI Cooperation, which was originally developed at Hanover Fair in Germany in 2007. This cooperation will initially consist of the associations FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, Hart Communications Foundation, OPC Foundation and Profibus Nutzerorganisation, as well companies ABB, Emerson, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell, Invensys, Siemens, and Yokogawa.
Seimens says the FDI project was undertaken to develop a specification which would make it easier for plant owners to integrate their manufacturing processes and devices, without having to purchase additional products and systems. The intent is to assure a uniform device integration solution for process industries across all host systems, devices and protocols as required by end-users.
Seimens claims the addition of supplier companies into the FDI Cooperation will strengthen the FDI effort by providing resources for the completion of a project designed to allow diagnostics to be extracted from field devices and calibration to be performed between devices. Supplier companies have agreed to support FDI packages in their systems and products.
The FDI specification is scheduled to be finalised in mid-2010. The scope of the enlarged EDDL Cooperation Team is covering common design and test tools, common binary format and interpreter across the protocols of HART, Fieldbus and Profibus.
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