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Suppliers and foundations unite for Field Device Integration

Automation suppliers and foundations around the world including HART, Fieldbus and Profibus have agreed to join the EDDL (electronic device description language) Corporation Team in a bid to hasten the adoption of Field Device Integration (FDI) technology, which will allow calibration and diagnostics of field devices from different vendors in the one plant.

Essentially, the EDDL Cooperation Team will be merged into the FDI Cooperation, which was originally developed at Hanover Fair in Germany in 2007. This co-operation will initially consist of the associations FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, Hart Communications Foundation, OPC Foundation and Profibus Nutzerorganisation, as well as the companies ABB, Emerson, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell, Invensys, Siemens, and Yokogawa.

The addition of supplier companies into the FDI Cooperation, which have agreed to support FDI packages in their systems and products, will strengthen the FDI effort by providing resources for the completion of a project designed to allow diagnostics to be extracted from field devices and calibration to be performed between devices, no matter what communication protocol they are using.

The FDI project was undertaken to develop a specification that would make it easier for plant owners to integrate their manufacturing processes and devices, without having to purchase additional products and systems. The intent is to ensure a uniform device integration solution for process industries across all host systems, devices and protocols as required by end-users.

The FDI specification is scheduled to be finalised in mid-2010. The scope of the enlarged EDDL Cooperation Team is covering common design and test tools, common binary format and interpreter across the protocols of HART, Fieldbus and Profibus.

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