multi-hopping to avoid other wireless in the area. We can provide a battery-powered ultrasound wireless node that will broadcast for more than two years.”

Banner opted for proprietary radio technology primarily for full control over data quality and reliable connectivity. “Food and beverage has a full range of special needs,” Lampert explains. “High and low pressure washdown, aggressive hygiene cleaning chemicals, food acids—all of these are part of the picture. We even have our share of Class 1 Div 1 [Class 1, Division 1 within the U.S. National Electrical Code] needs, including explosion proofing around grain elevators. We wanted to make sure that the technologies packaged for these needs were tightly integrated with the embedded radio equipment.”

While it is hard to say whether more wireless installations have occurred in magazines than in industry—wireless is found everywhere in both—one thing is certain: there are still many wired installations.

“Turck doesn’t offer wireless sensors,” says Turck’s Udelhoven. “We concentrate on [discrete] factory automation and OEM (original equipment manufacturer) applications, and don’t see the type of far-flung tank farms or acres-wide flow systems you find in process manufacturing. For our relatively compact applications, compact geographically, wired sensors are more reliable.”

Many of Turck’s offerings go into customized systems. “That brings us in contact with many very different needs,” Udelhoven explains. “And because packaging and accuracy are generally specified by end-users, we work in the broadest possible range of costs, from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars per unit. We’ve looked at wireless, but so far, it doesn’t make sense for us—we don’t experience the demand.”

Turck’s range of products is as broad as their application. Level sensing technologies include capacitive, ultrasonic (in its Levelprox family), linear displacement transducers that employ magnetic floats in magnetorestrictive probes, and conductive level probes and controllers.

In the final analysis, level sensing is all over the place—both in terms of application variety and in terms of nearly universal usage throughout manufacturing. Whether simple or complex, the technology behind level sensors and the engineering applied to their installation and integration into factory systems, all contribute quite literally to the global flow of products.

Subscribe to Automation World's RSS Feeds for Feature Articles