Standards Committee for Industrial Wireless Networks

Seven automation suppliers have joined with users on theInstrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society (ISA, ResearchTriangle Park, NC,  www.isa.org)"Wireless Standards for Automation (SP100)" committee to developwireless network structures for manufacturing plants.

On May 2, Honeywell (Phoenix, AZ,  www.honeywell.com/ps),Adaptive Instruments (Hudson, MA, www.accutechinstruments.com),Endress+Hauser (Greenwood, IN, www.endress.com), Flowserve (Irving, TX,www.flowserve.com), Omnex Control Systems (Port Coquitlam, BritishColumbia, www.omnexcontrols.com), 3e Technologies International(Rockville, MD, www.3eti.com),and Yokogawa Industrial Automation (Newnan, GA, www.yokogawa.com/iab/iab-index-en.htm) announced that they would participate in developing "an open industrialand multi-functional wireless standard [to] enable  industrialplants to use a single wireless network architecture to support a widerange of applications from low-rate monitoring to process control towireless worker functions," according to a statement released by Honeywell.

The announcement followed ISA's "Wireless Users Summit" and the SP100committee meeting on April 20. According to ISA, the committee is working to identify networkneeds for six classes of industrial applications, ranging from Class 0(critical safety applications) to Classes 4 and 5 (basic wirelessmonitoring and logging for condition-based maintenance and simpleregulatory compliance).

The ISA-SP100 committee will meet next at the Sensors Expo, June 5-7 inRosemont, IL.