says Emerson’s Peterson. “When you have to validate that certain manual operations have taken place, and that properly trained operators did the work, wireless offers tremendous advantages. Field personnel can move from task to task and document each step in real time, in lockstep with other processes in the plant.”

Emerson customer Celulosa Arauco, in Neuva Aldea, Chile, uses wireless as a key part of its highly automated pulping mill, which employs Emerson’s’ PlantWeb digital and DeltaV communications architectures. For example, equipment calibration times have been reduced dramatically—control center calibration for 30 motors now requires half a day, whereas previously, it took two weeks to a month. The scale of the plant is huge: employing several thousand, the facility’s capacity is 856,000 tons of kraft pulp a year. “The real gain,” Peterson points out, “is that the person at a machine or valve has access to all the information and can do what’s needed in as short a time as possible. This way, there are no wasted resources.”

As for the future? Most agree that wireless video is going to be a major feature, and that it is just off-stage. “High-definition video is already at work in mobile applications in medical, in carts that go from patient to patient,” says Roy. “That allows centralized diagnosis, where the best and the brightest don’t have to be at the bedside to resolve difficult situations. If you substitute a piece of critical equipment for ‘patient’ and repair strategies for ‘diagnosis,’ you begin to see great potential for maintenance applications alone.”

The growing proliferation of mobile wireless applications, not surprisingly, is driving an ever-increasing attention to, and products for, wireless security. You are, after all, broadcasting—transmitting electromagnetic energy through the air—and you want all the listening posts to be under your control. In the long run, as standards settle down, new products and types emerge, and applications proliferate, wireless is by definition a primary technology for any function that has to be in motion. And it is just getting started.

Automation World has extensively covered industrial wireless topics. To see more, search terms ISA100, WirelessHart or wireless at www.automationworld.com.

Sidebar - The Wireless Popping Machine
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