DART is definitely on its way to becoming an accepted standard technology in the worldwide process industry. The DART concept is centered around preventing the formation of sparks. Other technologies limit the effective power supplied to field devices in Zone 1 applications. 

At the 2010 Hannover Fair, Pepperl+Fuchs will present the first fieldbus interface products providing electric circuits with intrinsic safety by means of Dynamic Arc Recognition and Termination - DART.

DART Fieldbus – The intrinsically safe high-power trunk

DART makes the fieldbus high-power trunk intrinsically safe. The combined use of the FieldConnex DART Power Hub and the DART Segment Protector provide protection on the trunk. The spurs allow connection of any field instrument following the Entity concept. This allows the connection of practically all field instrumentation in use today. Fieldbus instrumentation in process plants can now be installed with long cable distances and intrinsic safety throughout.

The DART Power Hub provides intrinsically safe isolation for the high-power trunk:

• 22.5 volts at 360 mA
• Compact design
• Low heat dissipation
• Advanced diagnostic module
• Hot swapping

The new DART Segment Protector is the link between the high-power trunk and the field devices:

• Connectors for up to 12 spurs
• Maximum spur length 120 meters
• Short-circuit protection
• Outputs with Entity conformity

DART for high-powered field instrumentation

We will also present the first process analysis instrument Protos 3400 Power-i. from our DART systems partner Knick. It combines DART intrinsic safety with a number of features:

• Four measurement channels
• All circuits intrinsically safe
• Compact design
• Parallel processing of multiple measurements
• Built-in illuminated display
• Direct instrument connections

DART is both a revolution and an evolution. The revolutionary new concept is spark prevention, which allows intrinsically safe electric circuits to connect field devices requiring considerably more power than any presently known concept is able to supply. The evolution of DART for fieldbus does not require a totally new technical infrastructure, but is based upon existing fieldbus technology. DART works with a conventional trunk-and-spur topology and any Entity field device.

DART protects investments in existing process control systems, while opening the way to many new applications.

Fifteen manufacturers and suppliers to the worldwide process automation industry have already joined with Pepperl+Fuchs to become DART system partners. This means that DART is definitely on its way to becoming a new global standard.