June 2018

58 NEW PRODUCTS June 2018 www.drivesncontrols.com Bridges act as edge gateways between the factory floor and enterprise IT systems HMS has introduced a family of bridges that act as “edge gateways” to link factory networks to enterprise IT systems. The Anybus .Net Bridges – available for Profibus, Profinet, EtherCat and EtherNet/IP – present data from industrial machinery to .Net- based IT applications, allowing programmers to create PC programs that exchange live data with PLCs for applications such as predictive maintenance, machine analytics, data mining and processing, and production statistics. They do not interfere with the industrial processes. Factory-floor fieldbus and industrial Ethernet networks are designed for real-time communication and are separated from companies’ IT infrastructures. The bridges act as translators between the OT (operational technology) and IT areas, sending and receiving data between the factory networks and IT platforms using .Net as a framework. The communication is set up in a few minutes, offering a fast way to implement IIoT. The OT-IT information exchange is laid out in a spreadsheet template, which defines how the data is mapped, tagged and presented to the IT applications. The spreadsheet is uploaded to a code generator that creates a customised high-level C# API that is easy to integrate into a .Net application. It also generates a customised GSDML or XML file for the PLC. HMS Industrial Networks 01926 405599 www.anybus.com Emerson has announced the ability to integrate multiple safety zones in a single Asco Numatics Series 503 valve island. This allows up to three independent electro- pneumatic safety zones/circuits to be created in a machine, while also allowing independent non- safe sections to co-exist within one valve island assembly. Alternative approaches limit the isolation to one zone per island. The zoned safety approach helps to satisfy the demands of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC and to comply with ISO 13849-1, while eliminating the components and complexity commonly found in existing safety circuits. The zoned safety valve island means that operators do not have to shut down an entire machine by releasing compressed air with a redundant safety/control dump valve. Instead, the island can be configured to shut down pilot air and power only to the group of valves that control the machine’s motion in the operator’s vicinity. No redesign is needed and the user has choices when selecting valve options, accessories and flow requirements. The design also reduces safety system costs and saves machine space for other purposes. The zoned safety valve island has been tested by TÜV Rheinland and is compatible with Category 3 / PL d applications. Asco Joucomatic 01695 713600 www.asco.com Stratus Technologies has announced a zero-touch, virtualised computing platform for industrial edge applications. The ztC Edge platform can be managed remotely and installed in less than 30 minutes to reduce the IT burden for virtualised computing at the edge. Self- protecting and self-monitoring functions make it suitable for unmanned stations or remote locations with limited IT resources, and help to reduce downtime. The ztC is designed to handle the growing amount of data generated outside of traditional data centres, such as by shopfloor machines – the so-called industrial edge. It has been predicted that, by 2022, more than 50% of industrial IoT analytics will be performed at the edge, from less than 10% today. The DIN-rail-mountable ztC’s rugged form factor allows it to be deployed either at the edge, or outside traditional data centres. Because it takes care of itself, companies do not need to manage it, saving time and effort. Using pre-installed virtualisation software and intuitive configuration and management tools, the platform reduces the time to get critical applications up and running. It can manage up to three virtual machines, each running different industrial or IIoT applications. Stratus Technologies www.stratus.com Baumer ’s Verisens vision sensors now include models in IP69K- rated stainless-steel housings which can be washed down and are suitable for the food and pharmaceutical industries. The XF-105/205 models are based on the XF Series and can also read code and text. A patented image processor provides stable image evaluation and the sensors are claimed to be the first of their type to be configured via a Web interface. www.baumer.com/ch/en Belden has released a range of PoE injectors to support the growing demand for Power over Ethernet. The DIN-rail-mounting Hirschmann PoE/PoE+ injectors support up to 240W across up to eight ports without load sharing. The plug-and-play injectors can detect devices automatically. Efficiency is said to better than 95%. There are two versions: active (with a built-in power supply); or passive (using an external power source). They can be used to connect non-PoE switches with PoE devices. www.belden.com Valve island supports up to three independent safety zones Rugged self-monitoring platform targets edge computing market