Fieldbus Foundation Issues Transducer Block Specification For Wired HART and WirelessHART Devices

The Fieldbus Foundation has issued a Foundation Wireless and Remote I/O (WIO) preliminary specification addressing fieldbus transducer blocks for wired HART® and WirelessHART® devices, together with updates to the WIO System Architecture and WIO Data Structures related to the transducer block specification.

Part of the FOUNDATION for Remote Operations Management solution implementing wireless and remote I/O, the new technical specification defines a fieldbus transducer block used to represent HART devices within Foundation for Remote Operations Management devices. Both wired HART and WirelessHART devices may be represented in this block. In addition, the specification describes the expected method for HART configuration tools and asset-managing hosts to access HART devices using the native HART command protocol transported through our High Speed Ethernet (HSE) network. The specification also defines structures to identify and maintain HART device status in wired multi-drop networks as well as in WirelessHART mesh networks connected to Foundation for Remote Operations Management devices.

The Fieldbus Foundation’s director of technology development, Dave Glanzer, commented, “The new transducer block specification will benefit end users who need to be able to interface HART and WirelessHART devices to FOUNDATION fieldbus to improve their integration with a control system, or with FOUNDATION devices. They may also require a networked method for an asset-managing host to access a large set of HART and WirelessHART devices for HART configuration and maintenance purposes.”

Link to Press Release on Fieldbus Foundation Web Site