APATechnology is Doing Interesting things with FOUNDATION Fieldbus

My first week of work at the Foundation began at Hanover Fair.  The Fair was the launching point of the first ever Field Communication Lounge, where all the major fieldbus organizations got together in the same booth, including HART, Fieldbus Foundation, Profibus, and the FDT Group.  One of the companies demonstrating in the Foundation booth was APATechnologies (http://www.apatechnologies.com/).  APAT has a process automation system that heavily incorporates FOUNDATION technology and has a unique concept where the control function resides in the HSE linking device instead of the controller, a concept that the company informally refers to as "control near the field".   APAT is also unique because they are one of the few companies that uses FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE as its control network instead of an Ethernet-based network running a proprietary protocol.  Some very interesting developments from an up and coming process automation system supplier.