Field Wireless

New concept "Wireless Anywhere"

“Wireless Anywhere” Concept to Expand Use of Field Wireless Systems Based on the ISA100.11a Standard

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces the introduction of a new “Wireless Anywhere” business concept on the plant-wide use of ISA100.11a compliant wireless communication technologies for both monitoring and control applications.

For continuous processes that need sophisticated wireless control technologies, Yokogawa released the world’s first ISA100.11a compliant system devices and transmitters in July 2010, giving customers an expanded range of device choices.

Based on the “Grow” concept, in 2012 Yokogawa released three new field wireless system devices and enhanced existing wireless pressure and temperature transmitters to enable its customers to expand their plant wireless networks and make full use of existing assets. These ISA100.11a compliant wireless products can be used to construct highly reliable large-scale plant networks, and may also be incorporated with other Yokogawa products in small- and medium-sized networks, substantially expanding their capabilities.

The ISA100.11a standard ensures high reliability, application flexibility, network expandability, and compatibility with a variety of wired communication standards such as FOUNDATIONTM fieldbus, HART®, and PROFIBUS. “ISA100.11a full functional” field wireless network systems and devices make use of state-of-the-art dual redundant technologies that enable a much higher level of reliability, and allow massive scalability and long-range communications.

Yokogawa will aggressively promote this new “Wireless Anywhere” concept to widen the use of ISA100.11a-compliant products and related services. This augments our existing “Grow” concept, which encourages the introduction of wireless communication technologies by making a case for their inherent reliability, flexibility, and openness.

ISA100.11a Full Functional Field Wireless System Features

Such systems ensure responses in real time by making use of state-of-the-art dual redundant technologies and can be quite large in scale, supporting connections to up to 20 access points and 500 field wireless devices. The data update time is 5 seconds when the system consists of a host system and 500 field wireless devices, and 1 second with a host system and 200 field wireless devices. The field wireless devices are proven to be able to communicate over distances up to 10 km*1, 20 times the range of conventional systems.

Our wireless physical layer (Reliable Radio) and system redundancy technologies ensure a high level of reliability. With our Duocast technology, each field device simultaneously sends the same data to two designated access points, ensuring uninterrupted communication in the event that one of the points experiences a problem. The duplication of gateways and systems further strengthens the reliability of our wireless systems. The field wireless devices are proven to be able to communicate over distances up to 10 km*1, 20 times the range of conventional systems.

*1 With a high-gain antenna. Local regulations may restrict the use of such antennas with field wireless devices.

The Wireless Anywhere Concept

By following up on the Grow concept with this announcement of the Wireless Anywhere concept, Yokogawa is advocating the use of “ISA100.11a full functional” field wireless systems throughout plants. To this end, Yokogawa will pursue the following three initiatives:

1.Modularizing wireless components to accelerate product development
Yokogawa will develop modularized wireless components that incorporate the various technologies in its field wireless devices. This will make it easier for vendors to implement the ISA100.11a technology in new sensor products, and accelerate time to market. By the end of 2013 Yokogawa plans to begin releasing new field wireless devices with these components and expanding product lineup.

2.Promoting adoption of the ISA100.11a standard
Yokogawa will work with other members of the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (ISA100WCI) to increase the number of WCI member companies and promote acceptance of the ISA100.11a standard, thereby expanding the field wireless market. To make a wider range of ISA100.11a-compliant products available to the market, Yokogawa may supply modularized components to other vendors.

3.Facilitating host connectivity for both wired and wireless field networks
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. For example, an ISA100.11a-compliant adapter would enable a wired field device to link up with a wireless network.

Conclusion

Yokogawa is advocating the new Wireless Anywhere concept for solutions that work seamlessly with the diverse devices and advanced information technologies used at production sites. Yokogawa will continue to develop field wireless devices for both monitoring and control applications, and will partner with its customers to assure their long-term growth through the achievement of ideal plant operations.

Large-scale, reliable, next-generation plant-wide field wireless system

A new architecture for our “Grow” concept

Yokogawa launched the world’s first wireless field products conforming to the ISA100.11a standard in 2010 and has led the business ever since. Now, Yokogawa has released a new, large-scale, reliable, next-generation plant-wide field wireless system.  
In developing this system, which forms the core of field digital solutions, Yokogawa has focused on the following three key features.

1. Reliability: reliable high-performance field wireless and redundant technologies
2. Flexibility: flexible architecture that supports the full range, from small to large-scale plants
3. Openness: open ISA100.11a standard that allows third-party field wireless devices to be connected

This new system has been developed in line with Yokogawa’s “Grow” concept of helping customers to grow and enabling ourselves to evolve and continue to offer timely solutions.

Advantages of the next-generationfield wireless system

Although most field wireless systems are currently installed in relatively small areas, demands are rising for increasing the number of monitoring points, covering wider areas, and expanding to process control as well as diagnosis, monitoring, and measurement.
To respond to these demands, Yokogawa has developed a large-scale, reliable, next-generation plant-wide field wireless system, which will manage up to 500* wireless field devices.
*The number of Wireless Field devices which can be handled depends on software version of YFGW410.

Conventional small field wireless systems are mainly installed as additional monitoring tools in areas with a clear line-of-sight such as tank yards and wastewater treatment facilities. Such systems offer only limited advantages such as improved inventory management, reduced regular visual checking, automated environmental measurement, and reduced wiring costs.
In contrast, plant-wide field wireless systems can cover both a large number of measuring points in a small area packed with production equipment where wireless devices are difficult to install, as well as the entire plant. This allows customers to set up wireless devices anywhere in their plants and manage data from those devices to improve plant-wide production efficiency.

Architecture of the large-scale, flexible, field wireless system

Yokogawa has developed the following new products for the new field wireless system:

• YFGW410 field wireless management station
• YFGW510 field wireless access point
• YFGW610 field wireless media converter

Our YFGW710, the existing all-in-one type field wireless integrated gateway, combines all the functions of access points and wireless management, enabling small wireless systems to be easily installed.
In the new architecture, the YFGW510 serves as an access point and forms the wireless backbone network with the YFGW410 field wireless management station.
Therefore, by installing multiple YFGW510 field wireless access points throughout the plant, wireless sub-networks can be built and then connected to each other to create a large-scale, plant-wide field wireless system.
The YFGW510 and YFGW410 can communicate via Ethernet, optical Ethernet, wireless LAN, instrumentation cable communication*, and so forth, allowing flexible installation in plants.
*Instrumentation cable communication will be supported in the next phase.
An example of the system configuration is shown below.

Technologies to support a highly reliable field wireless system

YOKOGAWA Field Wireless has excellent receiving efficiency and the feature is high reliability of wireless physical layers（Reliable Radio).The technology enabled the 600m long distance communication with standard antenna if there is no obstacle. The low packet error rate is realized under the environment of multi path in “Pipe Jungle”.

The reliability of network layer is enhanced with the import of new technology. YOKOGAWA proposals are next two technologies.

1. Duocast

Duocast is a redundancy technology for the wireless path specified in the ISA100.11a standard. In the conventional mesh-topology network, if communication is not established in a path, data is then sent via another path. However, this may affect real-time performance because the data is not sent in the same time slot, but in a later time slot even in the same superframe.
On the other hand, Duocast simultaneously sends two identical data in the same time slot, and provided either data is successfully transmitted, real-time performance is maintained. Therefore, Duocast is ideal for ensuring the redundancy of mission-critical wireless paths and helps improve reliability while securing low latency (see the figure below).

Duocast can overcome failures of either access point as well as errors in a wireless path.

2. Dual wireless backbone network

The network between the YFGW510 and YFGW410 is called a wireless backbone network. Its redundancy is specified by the ISA100.11a standard to improve the reliability of the network and is achieved by the redundant YFGW410 stations. Either of the dual YFGW410 stations can deal with disconnections and errors of the wireless backbone network, and malfunctions of the other YFGW410 (see the figure below).

stations, one set to Active and the other to Standby, are connected with each other via a synchronous communication cable. If any trouble in the Active YFGW410 is detected, the functions and data are quickly shifted to the Standby YFGW410 to seamlessly continue communication.

Enhanced Version of Wireless Transmitters

Wireless Differential Pressure/Pressure Transmitter and Wireless Temperature Transmitter have enhanced with the release of Plant Wide Field Wireless System.

The improvement of communication quality with detachable antenna

The detachable antenna type model has released. The antenna extension cable and high-gain antenna* can used with this model. The placement of antenna can be adjusted with the antenna extension cable without change the installation of transmitters.

And the expansion of communication distance becomes possible with high-gain antenna*.
*Subject to the Radio law regulation of each country.

The extension of battery life with low power consumption

The battery life of the detachable antenna type model becomes longer than conventional product with low power consumption. It depends on the condition, from 1.5 times to 2 times of battery life is realized. The examples of the battery life is shown below.

EJX B Series Wireless Differential Pressure/Pressure Transmitter (Amplifier housing code 8 or 9)

　Update time 10 years at 30 seconds
　Update time 5 years at 10 seconds

YTA510 Wireless Temperature Transmitter (Amplifier housing code 8 or 9 and low power mode)

　Update time 10 years at 10 seconds
　Update time 8 years at 5 seconds

Summary

Yokogawa has been researching and developing industrial wireless technologies for ten years and has compared a variety of standards, with the following conclusion: in adopting wireless systems in the fields of industrial measurement and control, wireless physical layers must eliminate instability as far as possible (Reliable Radio) and the system must reinforce it.

Among various industrial wireless communication standards, the ISA100 standards were the most suitable for achieving Yokogawa’s policy. Therefore, Yokogawa adopted this standard and released the world’s first ISA100-compliant products in the market in 2010.

Yokogawa has since released various wireless applications while its development engineers have visited over 100 sites worldwide for survey.

The accumulation of such experience as well as the information obtained from many customers have been reflected in the development to make full use of the advantages of the ISA100 standards (ISA100 Full Functional), and to make the role of wireless communication clearer and securer toward Field Digital Innovation.

Reliability of Wireless Communication

The general perception that wireless communication is easily disconnected seems to be attributed to our daily experience with mobile phones and wireless LANs. The rapid progress of mobile phone technology meant that the latest digital wireless communication technology could be used to solve the very tough challenge of ensuring that high-speed data transmission rates and reliability are maintained while users are walking or moving at high speed in cars and trains.
However, the facts that a user moves at a certain speed and that the location of use is not fixed impose difficult conditions on wireless communication for which the radio wave environment changes dynamically, resulting in the instability typical of wireless communication.
Meanwhile, in many industrial measurement applications, the measurement location is considered and then fixed at the point of installation, and even if the user moves, the movement speed is very moderate and the movement range is also limited, and the required data transfer rate is also relatively low, so the environment is such that reliability can be easily maintained for wireless communication. In other words, it is possible to set conditions to ensure sufficient stability for wireless communication beforehand.
By introducing the latest digital wireless technology in such a relatively privileged environment, reliability comparable with wired communication can be ensured.

Security by digital communication technology

Even for fixed wireless communication, there are some concerns, such as interference and cross-talk from other wireless communication and jamming using the same frequency for malicious purposes.
Furthermore, wireless communication signals travel through the air and reach the surrounding areas, so there are concerns such as interception and eavesdropping by a third party, or penetration into the wireless network from the outside.
One answer to these concerns is the evolution from analog to digital technology for wireless communication.
Wireless communication in the analog era was vulnerable in terms of security as it could be intercepted by anyone using a receiver with the same frequency, and intentional interruption and interference were easy.
However, the introduction of digital technology to wireless communication reduced these concerns significantly. The following provides an overview of digital technology.

Environmental Conditions and Wireless Communication

There are some misunderstandings regarding the concerns about the environmental impact of wireless communication.
For example, it is not true that field wireless communication is vulnerable to strong magnetic fields, or communication is interrupted by rainfall. In some cases, wireless communication is more advantageous than wired communication. The following summarizes the relations between the environmental conditions and wireless communication.

• Damage by lightning surge
  Lightning surge is a phenomenon that a surge current generated by lightning flows through the power supply cable and communication cables and damages the connected electronic devices. Therefore, the lightning surge risk for wireless transmitters is rather small because they are not connected by cables. However, an on-site lightning protection measure is required to prevent a direct lightning strike.
• Communication interference by lightning
  The frequency of electromagnetic waves generated by an electric discharge produced by lightning is said to have a wide range between a couple of hertz and 1 gigahertz. However, the higher the frequency, the lower the power becomes, and the problem only occurs when electric discharge and intermittent communication happen to occur at the same time. Even if that happens, the problem can be covered by retransmission control.
• Impact of rain, snow, and fog
  The 2.4 GHz range used for field wireless communication suffers little impact from rain and snow. This has been proven by experiments.Generally it is said that communication begins to be impacted from 10 GHz and higher.
• Disconnection risk
  Wireless communication is free from the cable disconnection problem typical of wired communication, which occurs when a cable is broken as a result of a disaster or deterioration in a bad environment, when a cable is damaged by wild animals, or when a cable is cut intentionally by a malicious person.
• Impact of strong magnetic field
  A magnetic field that causes a problem is generally not one in the high frequency range of wireless communication but one in the low frequency range. Wireless communication is advantageous in this respect as an induction current generated by a magnetic field is produced with regards to the conductor (wire).

Unique Battery Pack Technology

Efficient battery replacement made possible by our unique battery pack technology.

The uniquely designed battery housing compartment and battery pack within our wireless transmitters allows it to be exchanged in the field, even within a hazardous area. The battery pack further enables convenient access to the internal batteries so that they may be replaced as is necessary and restocked. Thus minimizing both waste and cost, while making the battery replacement process as efficient as possible. The batteries used within the battery pack are standard ‘D’ cell Lithium/Thionyl Chloride batteries. These have excellent power versus temperature characteristics along with a long in service life that makes them suitable for use within environments.

ISA100 and DPharp for the Digital World

A combination of two unique technologies has enabled true end to end, through the air digital sensing. Marrying the renowned benefits of the DPharp digital sensing with ISA100.11a, the new industrial standard for wireless sensor network, has brought a truly unique proposition. Advanced high precision digital sensing with all the benefits of wireless deployment; reduced engineering and commissioning with the flexibility to expand the wireless sensor network to meet future demand.

The bringing together of DPharp with ISA100.11a represent Yokogawa’s commitment to continue delivering unsurpassed leading edge solutions to the industrial automation industry. Reliable, secure, flexible and intuitive the new wireless transmitter series simplify all aspects of wireless deployment, management and operation while delivering excellence as standard.

Whether installed upstream on remote pipelines and wellheads or downstream in tank farms, vacuum columns or loading piers our wireless transmitters will continue to deliver secure, precise, reliable, high integrity process measurements that meet your demand.

Our wireless transmitters will increase your process visibility by reducing operational blind spots, which in turn will reduce your process variability, increased yield, and improved product reproducibility while reducing costs and increasing flexibility.

ISA100 brings you real sustainable lifecycle benefits to meet your requirements now and in the future.

The ISA100.11a Wireless Communication Standard

Wireless technology such as mobile phones and wireless networks has become an indispensable part of our lives. Now there is greater demand for compatibility with instrumentation of that wireless technology. So, what is the best wireless technology to use?

A variety of vendors including Yokogawa Electric have been providing simple implementation over wireless communication, but they have just not been widely accepted for reasons such as:

• Most use proprietary communication protocols thus limiting potential applications.
• It has not been possible for one set of wireless instrumentation to handle multiple brands of products.
• Engineers were unable to ignore concerns about communication channel security and reliability.

But now, Yokogawa has adopted the ISA100.11a wireless communication standard that is geared toward Industrial Automation, and worked to make user-friendly wireless devices that meet international standards.

ISA100.11a has the following noteworthy features:

These are based on user requests for industrial wireless sensor networks; the ISA100.11a industrial wireless standard meets all of these requests at once.

By adopting industrial wireless technology based on the ISA100.11A standard, we will be able to build highly-reliable, promising new styles of instrumentation that we are confident to solve many problems.

Demo of Using ISA100 Wireless Technology for Control Application

–Paving the way for the smooth integration of plant monitoring and control applications using a single wireless infrastructure

The system designed for this demonstration was comprised of a prototype wireless D3 valve positioner from Flowserve Corporation and Yokogawa’s flagship integrated production control system “CENTUM® VP”, wireless gateway devices, and the DPharp EJX B series wireless differential pressure/pressure transmitter. The field wireless devices were all compliant with the ISA100 WirelessTM by ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute and featured a fast 1-second data update time. Redundant wireless communications paths were employed to ensure high reliability.

Yokogawa products in this demonstration system:

• CENTUM VP integrated production control system
• DPharp EJX B series differential pressure/pressure transmitter
• YFGW410 field wireless management station
• YFGW510 field wireless access point

The feature of the wireless control demonstration of the water level

1. Field wireless devices controlled by the PID control of the DCS
2. Fast data update : 1 second
3. state-of-the-art redundant technologies Duocast and the redundant Field Wireless Management Station
   YFGW410
4. The prototype product of wireless D3 valve positioner by Flowserve Corporation

The detailed wireless control demonstration of the water level

Purpose: Yokogawa assures the appropriate wireless control is updated every 1 second.

Method: A distribute controller communicates with a wireless valve positioner and a wireless differential pressure/pressure transmitter and controls water level as target four levels.

Constitution: "CENTUM VP" distributed control system communicates with the infrastructure of ISA100.11a wireless system and controls the water level by PID control.

Important Notice