Our Man in Mumbai

John Rezabek, the regular author of our "On the Bus" column, wears other hats as well. He is also a member of the Foundation Fieldbus Advisory Council. In that role, he is attending the 2011 Fieldbus Foundation General Assembly in Mumbai, India. This morning he sent us this very brief report on the opening day events.

Addressing a conference that included a record number of attendees, P. Mahajan, Director of Engineers India Limited, called Foundation Fieldbus "one of the best things that have happened in our industry". Citing its long history of end-user involvement in the development and evolution of the technology, Mr. Mahajan says "Foundation fieldbus has a definite edge over other fieldbus technologies" and that the onus is on consulting organizations to play a responsible role to suggest the "right usage of the right technology".
 
Exhibitor's booths were busy with over 350 end users present. P+F unveiled their newest technology for intrinsic safety, Dynamic Arc Recognition and Termination, or DART. "The principle of DART is the detection of the developing arc and the fast shut-off of power source and / or sink before the spark becomes incendive," said Michael Kessler, director of R&D for P+F. Four years in development and certified by the PTB in Braunschweig, DART promises to revolutionize the application of intrinsic safety for both FF and Profibus, allowing trunks of up to a kilometer, as many as 32 devices per segment, and total networks up to the 1900-meter limit of the H1 specification - all this while meeting Ex ib IIc, the most stringent gas category for Zone 1 installations. On the show floor, Dr. Thomas Klatt explained "we [P+F] are licensing the technology to all the physical layer suppliers because we know the end-user community won't tolerate a sole-source supplier."

For more information on DART, go here.