Pioneers at PPG Industries Inc.’s Lake Charles, La., plant and at the
Lost Pines Power Park, near Austin, Texas, began moving ahead with
wireless technology prior to the release of industrial standards
governing the technology. And if all goes as planned, the early projects at these facilities will require only minor tweaking to play well with emerging industrial wireless standards.

End-users looking to deploy wireless technology in their plants going forward, however, should soon have a standards-based foundation on which to build. In early September, the Hart Communication Foundation (HCF) officially released its Hart 7 Specification, which includes WirelessHart—the first wireless standard specifically designed for process measurement and control applications. Initial WirelessHart-compliant products are expected in early 2008.

{mosimage} Not far behind is ISA100, a wireless standard being developed by the SP100 committee of the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society. A draft version of ISA100.11a—the first in an anticipated family of ISA100 standards—is expected this month. Initial products complying with that standard could come in the second half of 2008.

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