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It seems like "dejavu".  In the last couple of decades of the 20th century the big giant process instrumentation companies did battle to see who was going to be able to drive the standards for communication protocols.  The big battles were between HART and Foundation Fieldbus that emanated out of the ISA SP50 committee. 

If memory serves me, HART had become a defacto standard long before the SP50 was finished with their work and the first commercial products were available.  The fight between Emerson/Rosemount and Foxboro, Honeywell and others was a classic.... and the user was not served very well if you ask me. 

There are still three primary field instrument communication standards, e.g. HART, Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus.   A recent research study reported that the first Fieldbus device was installed in 1997 and there are now almost 1.4 million Fieldbus devices installed around the world.  However, this pales by comparison to HART. 

How does this relate to the powder and bulk solids markets?  Sensors, especially level measurement sensors, are used in increasing numbers in the monitoring of material inventory and aspects of powder handling and processing. 

Wireless communication exists and is here to stay, especially as the cost for hard wired systems increases and the cost of wireless continues to decrease.  Understanding the development of standards for wireless protocols is important for even the powder handling professional.

For more on this subject click here.

Joe Lewis

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