New ISA100 Wireless™ Communications Module Simplifies ISA100 Wireless Product Development

Yokogawa Electric Corporation’s ISA100 Wireless Module helps device suppliers quickly develop ISA100 Wireless-based products by significantly reducing product integration and certification complexity

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA (15 May 2014) – The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute announced today that Yokogawa Electric Corporation has released an ISA100Wireless Module specifically targeted at any businesses that need an easy onramp for ISA100 product development. Intended for use in wireless sensors and those companies that develop and manufacture these products, the module significantly reduces the amount of time and resources to develop ISA100 Wireless-compliant products.

Yokogawa promotes the Wireless Anywhere concept for the plant-wide wireless communication technology.  In plants, sensors are used to measure temperature, pressure, level, gas concentration, vibration, and more.  To develop these products, suppliers must not only use a satisfactory wireless technology, they must also build a product that complies with radio regulations and explosion protection standards that vary by country, a process that can be both time consuming and costly.  To remove this product development obstacle, Yokogawa released the ISA100 Wireless communications module with a built-in antenna.

The module complies with radio regulations of more than 100 countries and meets all the major explosion protection standards.  Additionally, it is both compact and lightweight so as to have a minimal impact on each company’s overall sensor design.

“Yokogawa has taken a lead in promoting and enabling smaller device supplier companies to take full advantage of the ISA100 Wireless standard,” said Andre Ristaino, Managing Director, ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute. “Yokogawa’s objectives to speed up wireless sensor development, comply with radio regulations and explosion protection standards, and enable the development of compact and lightweight field wireless sensors are key factors in device supplier enablement.”

Earlier this year Yokogawa received the Frost & Sullivan “2014 Global Enabling Technology Leadership Award” in the wireless solutions category (Click to view the video). The Enabling Technology Leadership Award is presented to companies around the world that are best-in-class in a specific category. Upon accepting this award on Yokogawa’s behalf, Corporate Fellow Kimikazu Takahashi indicated, “This wireless solution based on ISA100 technology has been completed by many people including customers, vendors, and WCI staff members. I believe this award is given to all those related people’s efforts and results. Our Wireless Anywhere initiative is an enabling technology, as is exactly indicated in the award title, enabling the expanded use of wireless technology in today’s industry facilities. We believe this will enable more innovation in industries, and we are quite happy to have made this possible.”

Field wireless systems enable a plant’s field devices and host-level monitoring and control systems to communicate wirelessly with each other. To encourage the use of field wireless systems in both monitoring and control applications, Yokogawa will seek to improve the effectiveness of plant-wide field digital networks by making it possible for wired and wireless field devices and systems to connect with host monitoring and control systems. This will necessitate the development of technologies that will ensure host systems and field devices can communicate with each other using a variety of protocols.

Yokogawa released the world’s first ISA100 compliant wireless system devices and wireless pressure and temperature transmitters in July 2010, and continues to enhance its lineup of wireless solutions. In line with the company’s Wireless Anywhere concept, Yokogawa also plans to release a multi-protocol wireless adaptor that will enable wired field instruments or analytical sensors to be used as ISA100 Wireless devices and promote the use of field wireless technologies.

About ISA100 Wireless
ISA100 Wireless (IEC 62734) is an international, industrial wireless networking standard engineered to serve the needs of process industries. With native IPv6 networking, ISA100 Wireless extends the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) to wireless.  End users can select ISA100 Wireless Compliant™ devices from a best-of-breed pool of suppliers with assurances of device interoperability. ISA100 Wireless enables automation engineers to quickly create, modify, optimize, and scale wireless networks that are open, interoperable, and reliable for their most critical applications. ISA100 Wireless is the first standard in the ISA100 family of open standards.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] The ISA100 Wireless standard received ISA committee approval in 2011 and formal ANSI approval in January 2012.  Headed toward internationalization, ANSI/ISA-100.11a-2011 successfully completed the CD stage in the IEC standards process with unanimous approval of IEC 62734 CDV in October 2013.  ISA100 Wireless is the only IPv6, 6LoWPAN industrial protocol designed for industrial automation.

About the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute
The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (ISA100 WCI) is a non-profit industry organization that provides users and developers with market awareness, educational information, technical support, and compliance testing for the ISA100 family of standards. ISA100 WCI provides real-world feedback from the deployment of ISA100 Wireless devices and systems to ISA Standards Committees, fostering rapid refinement to the standards.

More information about the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute can be found online at www.isa100wci.org.

The ISA100 Wireless and ISA100 Wireless Compliant are trademarks of ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute.  All other marks are trademarks of their respective companies.