Common Platform Facilitates Instrumentation Innovation
ĀIf you can use a cell phone, you can configure our transmitters,Ā said Sean Keeping, ABB vice president of technology for instrumentation, in reviewing the companyĀs roadmap for instrumentation development for the coming year and into the future.Ā Ease of use is key for end users, Keeping said, and standardization on a single, scaleable platform is central to streamlining the companyĀs development efforts. ĀWe now have a common technology platformĀitĀs not cosmetic, but a fundamental commonality,Ā Keeping said.
In fact, the electronics platform consists of four different form factors, depending on the complexity and functionality required: a two-wire transmitter platform for relatively simple measurement devices; a two-wire ĀplusĀ platform for more complex loop-powered devices; a four-wire platform (for magmeters or Coriolis flowmeters, for example); and an advanced platform with a more full-featured HMI. Each platform has common navigation and a common look and feel, added Pat Cashwell, ABB vice president of field instrumentation. ĀThe key point is to make it easy. We donĀt have those super-techs anymore,Ā he said.
ĀWe now have a family of interfaces, all with the same flavor.Ā ABBĀs Pat Cashwell discussed how the companyĀs scaleable instrumentation platform is both easier for end users and streamlines development of new measurement devices.
ĀWe now have a family of interfaces, all with the same flavorĀfrom four buttons on a transmitter to a hand-held communicator to AssetMaster on a PC to 800xA Asset Optimization,Ā Cashwell continued. ĀItĀs all about the right data, easily accessible.Ā
In addition to unifying its own instrumentation platforms, ABB also is Ādriving hard to harmonize wireless standards to the benefit of our customers,Ā Cashwell added. The company is fully behind WirelessHART and plans to release its first pressure and temperature transmitters using the protocol by early 2009.
Also on the docket for release in the coming year are two new magmeters, called the ProcessMaster and WaterMaster, targeted at process and water/wastewater applications, respectively, according to Keeping. The process version will be explosion-proof, and both will feature newly extended self-diagnostics and filtering, as well as SensorMemory, a unique feature designed to simplify installation and maintenance. Also planned for release by the time ABB Automation World rolls around next year are new pressure, temperature, pH and conductivity transmittersĀall leveraging the common electronics platform, Keeping said. On the analytical front, new flue gas oxygen and colorimetric instruments are in the works, as is a new ControlMaster series of panel-mount controllers.
This is only a sample of whatĀs yet to come, Keeping hinted. ĀABB is investing heavily to develop an entirely new generation of instrumentation.Ā
