A wireless ABB device has made it possible to retrieve valuable but inaccessible process and maintenance information that is currently stranded in millions of HART instruments, the dominant communication protocol in the process industries.

*HART is by far the most widely used communication protocol for intelligent process instrumentation in the world today. Around 30 million HART-enabled instruments are currently installed, but the information in only about 10 percent of them is accessible remotely.

The data in 27 million or so HART-enabled devices sits unused, stranded within the instruments. It can be accessed using a special handheld tool connected to each instrument one at a time, but once the tool is disconnected, the process measurements and diagnostic information inside the instrument is locked and rendered inaccessible.

To remedy the situation and provide a simple and effective route to the information, ABB and other members of the HART Communication Foundation recently developed a new international standard for wireless communication between HART devices and intelligent hosts like distributed control systems.

 

Known as WirelessHART, the standard was introduced in 2007 and is the world’s first unifying standard for wireless field devices. For it to function, however, it requires WirelessHART-enabled products. One of the first to be developed and tested is ABB’s WirelessHART upgrade adapter.

Successfully tested at the world’s largest integrated chemical complex (BASF’s Ludwigshafen site in Germany) and other sites in Asia, Europe and North America, the adapter is a simple, secure, reliable and low-cost entry point to wireless instrumentation.

Its compact size, fixed antenna and robust rotating housing make it easy to install in even the most challenging and space-restricted conditions. Highly energy efficient, the adapter scavenges power from the 4 to 20 mA loop; there are no batteries to maintain and this, along with its low power requirements, enables it to be installed at the end of long cable runs.

The adapter upgrades HART instruments with wireless connectivity while retaining the original 4-20 mA loop for control purposes. It enables operating and maintenance personnel to dial in, troubleshoot, condition-monitor or read the process variables, all by remote.
It is part of a larger ABB offering of wireless products for HART instruments, which includes a system integrated WirelessHART gateway and asset optimization and instrument management software (AssetVision Professional).

*HART is an open communications protocol (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer Protocol) and an early version of Fieldbus, a digital industrial automation protocol.