Lots has been written in this space about using industrial wireless with PROFINET. This is mostly the ‘what’; this post is to address the ‘how’. “How do I implement industrial wireless in a PROFINET network?” Just to recap, while wireless is… Read more »

I would like to use PROFINET, but my application is an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV). It’s battery powered with no preset track. I would like to use PROFINET, but the machine rotates and slip rings wear out too fast. If… Read more »

I enjoy corresponding with editors about all things PROFINET and PROFIBUS.  But sometimes they don’t get to use my input.  So all my stuff wound up on the editing room floor for a recent article on wireless.  To save my… Read more »

PROFINET can be connected wirelessly as easily as it can be connected with wires.  Of the four kinds of wireless (see previous post), this post is about wireless in discrete automation.  Moreover, it’s about places where wireless has already been… Read more »

PROFIBUS and PROFINET are involved in three of the four kinds of wireless. (Yes, wireless is not one monolithic thing: Wireless or Wireless.) My take on the four kinds: Long-distance like to RTUs Process instrument networks like WirelessHART (PI cooperated… Read more »

In Nashville, I did not answer a question adequately about the ranges for various wireless technologies according to a comment on one Course Evaluation.  Let me remedy that here: The expected distance for the various IEEE802.11 variants (a, b, g,… Read more »

One of my pet peeves is lumping all wireless types together and treating them as one.  Wireless is not one monolithic thing. I see four types of wireless in industrial automation: 1. Backhaul (as I think ISA characterizes it).  Typically… Read more »

There was news of progress in a number of technology areas: IO-Link, wireless, PROFIBUS, and PROFINET. IO-Link products are appearing more rapidly.  IO-Link is not a fieldbus, but allows digital communications over the device’s cable.  This led me to characterize… Read more »

There were 45 of us in Austin for the PROFINET one-day training class.  Not many compared to the previous day’s PROFIBUS class in Pittsburgh with 102, but still a very engaged group posing lots of questions for us. So many… Read more »