the market immediately, Sensicast announced at ISA Expo an ongoing development partnership with GainSpan to make use of the GS1010 chip in SensiNet Smart Sensors.  

ISA100 look-ahead  

“Early on, we concluded that the ISA100 standards for wireless industrial automation would be a family of standards,” said Wayne Manges, co-chair of the SP100 committee, during an ISA100 press conference at the show. And with a draft standard expected soon on the first standard—ISA100.11a, which is focused on process industries needs—the committee recently called for expressions of interest on what its next priorities should be.  

Four candidate areas have been identified, Manges said. One is a wireless standard for discrete manufacturing. A second involves radio frequency identification (RFID) real-time location services, said Manges, adding that a study group has been created to develop a guiding document for how to use RFID technologies in the process industries.  

A third area involves a possible security group to be formed within SP100, not to replace the ISA99 security standard for industrial automation, but to focus on ways to integrate wireless security concerns with those in the wired world, Manges said. A fourth candidate area for SP100 investigation involves longer-range options, for applications such as pipelines and electrical distribution systems in which data gathering and communications must cover long distances.  

On another front, meetings were held during ISA Expo between the SP100 committee and HCF representatives regarding an earlier announced agreement to strive for a consensus approach to incorporate WirelessHart into the ISA100 standard. And while discussions reportedly became heated at times, the SP100 group did develop both a short-term and long-term plan for integrating WirelessHart into ISA100.11a, according to Manges, though no details were provided.

GainSpan Corp.
www.gainspan.com

Hart Communication Foundation
www.hartcomm.com

Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society
www.isa.org

Oceana Sensor
www.oceanasensor.com

Sensicast Systems Inc.
www.sensicast.com