VDC Research: Industrial Sensing, Networking & Control Market Blog

Mining Events Drive Improvements in Intrinsically Safe Communication Technology

This morning brings news of another mine incident. This time in New Zealand. As I write this text, the fate of 27 miners is still uncertain. One can only hope the outcome is the same if not shorter duration than the Chilean mine collapse earlier this year.

Just yesterday, I was contemplating the idea of writing on this topic when saw a Newsweek article and I was reminded of the sad outcome of the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia. This event and other similar ones spawned governent legislation entitled "MINE IMPROVEMENT AND NEW EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACT OF 2006 (MINER ACT)" Part of this act was aimed at improving communication between miners and surface support personnel both normally and in the wake of an incident. This act provided funding for important research in a number of key areas. The targeted time for the approval and deployment is now at hand and it looks to be interesting on how these new and developing technologies will impact the market for Functional Safety products.

The idea of providing mine communication systems presents many challenges. If wireline or wireless technology is going to be deployed it has to be intrinsically safe in that it will not, under normal or fault conditions, by way of an electrical spark or overheated component initiate a fire or explosion. This means that the circuitry has to use very low voltages and have protection against faults. As recent events have underscored, mines can become flooded, tunnels and areas can collapse, and there is the continual risk of explosion from dust and/or gasses. Lastly, the mine is always being expanded, so communication systems have to be scalable. Typical wireless technology that would be used in a normal factory like industrial setting is not workable underground where tons of rock can stand between transmitters and receivers. Even so, it appears that some companies are close to solving these problems with systems that have redundancy and the ability to reroute signals using the best path. To me, it sounds like what happens on the Internet where traffic is continuously re-routed in response to outages and/or congestion. It will be interesting to see the impact of these new products if/as they gain a foothold in the market for functional safety products. 

Spectris acquires N-TRON in response to growing demand for greater connectivity on the factory floor, signaling the industrial networking market is in transition

Spectris PLC recently acquired N-TRON Corporation, a top 10 supplier of industrial switches worldwide according to VDC data, to further solidify its ability to respond to growing demand for connectivity among the customers of the instrumentation and control products and solutions that its various operating companies produce.   According to John O’Higgins, Chief Executive of Spectris, “the acceptance of Ethernet in the industrial market for integrating shop-floor information within the business IT infrastructure is rapidly increasing. N-TRON’s hardware capabilities will enable us to leverage our current communications technologies to meet this demand and to build our position in the industrial controls market around the world”.

N-TRON will operate within Spectris’ Industrial Controls business segment, while maintaining its own brand and sales distribution network. N-TRON offers managed and unmanaged switches; media converters; gateways; POE enabled switches, splitters and injectors; and wireless radios.

According to extensive research VDC has conducted over the last several years touching on topics such as The Connected Factory, Industrial Networking Infrastructure Products, and much more, the need among OEMs and end user to automate their operations and improve their competitive position has never been greater. The timing of this acquisition was consistent with the growing body of evidence being developed by VDC and growing themes being echoed by both suppliers and users alike – that the ability to connect devices, instruments and controllers into the enterprise is becoming a de facto requirement for companies hoping to survive in the coming decade.

Discussions with industrial networking suppliers, end users and relevant stakeholders over the last few months is revealing a clearer picture that the market for industrial networking products is in transition, and that the “tipping point” driving omnipresent connectivity of instruments, devices, and even control applications, including via wireless connectivity, is close at hand. Even more interesting is discussions centering on the trend towards convergence of networking products themselves.  Ruggedcom has developed “multi-service platforms which integrate switching and routing functionality and there is indications that switch suppliers will be embedding radios into their switches and radios suppliers will be looking to develop switch products around their radios. Cost, space, and wiring interface reductions are major drivers of customer demand for such convergence as well as the increasing acceptance of wireless in a growing number of applications, even outside of data acquisition and monitoring.  

As an Analyst it is very exciting to be covering markets that are “in transition” and the topic of convergence begins to enter into the discussion and, even more excitedly, into new product development and education of the marketplace.  It affords an Analyst the opportunity to “tell a story that provides people a vision and a framework with which to deal with the uncertainty of the future that said convergence poses”. Let’s just say that we would not be surprised if we saw increased M&A activity in the coming months and, certainly, years.

I am interested in learning about your thoughts, opinions and even questions on the state of the industrial networking market and where you think the future is going and what it may hold in store for us all.

 

Kinect - Could this technology have a future in industrial automation?

Last week, I was among the throngs of people that purchased the new Microsoft XBox 360 Kinect accessory. For those who don't know what that is, Kinect allows users to interact with video games without touching/holding a controller. Kinect uses a sensor filled bar placed in the front of the television facing the playing space. From what I can see,and have experienced, this technology has great potential in the Industrial Automation market. Before I go further, I want to make clear, that Kinect is a consumer electronics device and the technology and safety factors involved are years and by that I mean possibly a decade before they could be safely integrated and routinely found in an industrial workplace.

As an example of my misgivings, when playing the bowling game, I made an inadvertent gesture at one point and, as a result, sent the bowling ball I was virtually holding sailing into the virtual crowd. The programmers had allowed this to happen but, as it is a family game, everyone in the audience was able to avoid injury by ducking. Still, the idea of a robot hurling a object like an automobile transmission into a group of workers is a chilling thought. There are now also documented cases of where players have injured themselves and other players as well as their HDTV but that is out of scope for further discussion in this blog.

OK, now that I have stated the disclaimer and the cautionary note, let's examine the potentials I saw in this Kinect technology. For the sake of brevity, I will not go into too many details of the existing or possible technical limitations. Let's assume these can be worked out.

Operator ID: The Kinect recognizes the person through its RGB camera and infrared/CMOS sensors. It also is able recognize voices. This type of technology could ensure that the only properly trained people are using the system in question. It also can replace or augment traditional security login and password systems.

Hands Free: The Human Machine Interface (HMI) is wireless but does not need to transmit a signal and the operator does not need to hold a controller. It only needs a clear view and a reasonably lit / defined operating space. The Kinect also can take voice commands and calibrates itself to eliminate ambient noise and determine the location that the command came from. Although, as stated above, I won't get into details but noisy factory floors will be a challenge to overcome. The user also needs a display so they can see where they are pointing.

Emergency Stop/Pause: The Kinect has a "universal" pause where the user places their left hand on their hip and the right arm at a 45 degree downward angle. This pauses the game in progress. In an factory, this type of control would ensure the operator can stop the machine even if they are not within easy reach of an EMO switch. It also could be a type of alternative to a hard emergency stop. Think of it as a "cautionary pause".

Position Sensing: The Kinect tracks the user with the sensors and can pivot/tilt itself up and down in order to do so. This would seem to have potential in places where machines and personnel occupy the same areas and protection via traditional light curtains and other sensors is impractical.

In summary, time will tell if this technology finds a place in the factory. Clearly machine vision has already found a place but, that is usually limited to the machine and the object being processed. In VDC's Industrial Automation and Control practice, we cover a lot of subjects such as Functional Safety, Machine Safety, and HMI that can be impacted. As we look forward to 2011 and beyond, it will be interesting to see if any of this Kinect type HMI and sensing comes into the industrial market. 

Achieving Plant-Wide Connectivity via EtherNet/IP Dominant Theme at Rockwell Automation’s Automation Fair

Last Thursday, we attended the Rockwell Automation Fair, which was well-attended as usual. I was intrigued to learn how Rockwell Automation has been playing a leading role in enabling both users and OEMs to reap the benefits of automation and connectivity. With EtherNet/IP as the primary communications protocol, devices and controllers are able to communicate to the enterprise through monitoring applications, real-time motion control, high availability applications, safety and more. Rockwell Automation is relying on time synchronization to enable EtherNet/IP to perform real-time applications without the concerns of latency and deterministic performance—typical of standards Ethernet TCP/IP.

Rockwell Automation is connecting all these applications without the need for two networks. Instead of placing one network at the device level communicating the device to controller and another to communicate with the enterprise network, this “efficient solution” thereby saves companies money, lowers their operational TCO and empowers them with the ability to be achieve greater flexibility, productivity, agility and visibility into their operations. I am still searching for another vendor that can offer such an elegant (simple did not seem appropriate) but powerful solution, but I am sure others will be following Rockwell’s lead.

Bottom line – Rockwell Automation, and its Encompass Partners, are empowering OEMs and end users to leverage the latest technology and standards to compete and succeed in an increasingly tough global economy.

There are several networks serving the needs of industrial automation customers across many different industries, and most will continue to do so, but VDC’s data from over 500 respondents has indicated the primary winners in the network battle. EtherNet/IP has taken the lead in North America and as for Europe, I will let you take a guess. But here’s a hint—the main proponent of this network is no stranger to VDC.

There were lots of key industry players in attendance, many of whom are deeply involved in industrial networking and factory automation initiatives. I am keen to learn about their success, their challenges and the questions keeping them up at night. Those are the types of issues and questions we are looking to raise and hopefully address during the publication of our 2010 Industrial Networking Market Intelligence program.

Our goal of the research is to provide suppliers and their relevant stakeholders with insightful and actionable market intelligence that will enable them to make product development decisions, fine tune channel strategies and make the type of strategic decisions that provide a competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive market. We are closing out the last round of web surveys and are hoping to obtain well over 500 respondents from which to conduct meaningful analysis. We will be sharing top level findings from those results in the coming weeks – so please keep an eye out for them!

 I certainly welcome your comments, questions and/or success stories on how your networking products and/or software solutions (and corresponding network protocol(s)) are doing, and how they are the “best solution” for the customers that you serve in your target markets. I would love to hear from users or channel partners that can share their success (or, hopefully not, horror) stories on how deploying networking in your operations has enabled you to produce more, save more or provide better customer service.