Phoenix Contact Joins ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (ISA100 WCI) announced that Phoenix Contact, maker of industrial connection technology, automation technology, electronic interface systems, has joined the ISA100 WCI as a supplier member.

“We recognize the growing importance of wireless technologies in industrial applications and have also supported the benefits that wireless standards can bring to the user,” said Garrett Schmidt, wireless product manager for Phoenix Contact. The company’s wireless product portfolio already includes products conforming to other specifications and standards, including WiFi and WirelessHart.

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute provides technical support and compliance services for vendors designing products to ISA100.11a, an industrial wireless sensor networking standard that is the first in the ISA100 open family of standards focusing on the needs of process industries; planned additions include support for backhaul functionality, factory automation and other key use cases. www.isa100wci.org

ISA100.11a  is competing with WirelessHart for dominance as the enabler of smart instrumentation. For more on these two standards, see “Wireless Sensor Network Standards: On the Road to Convergence?” in the October 2011 issue of Automation World.

Renee Robbins Bassett, [email protected], is managing editor of Automation World.