Emerson Process Management has introduced Foundation Fieldbus interfaces for Controlwave RTUs and ROC800-series remote operations controllers. The Foundation Fieldbus interface is said to combine the benefits of Foundation Fieldbus with proven RTUs to reduce costs and increase efficiency in a range of oil and gas, water and wastewater applications.It extends the power of Plantweb digital architecture beyond traditional plant walls, where environmental demands on power consumption, temperature range, physical size, and mounting footprint are important system design considerations. Operational performance is improved through the increased accuracy of digitally retrieved process data and diagnostic information provided to decision makers. Integrating the RTU and remote operations controllers into Plantweb architecture is said to provide enterprise-wide optimisation, instrument diagnostics, predictive maintenance scheduling, calibration, and reconfiguration.
The Foundation Fieldbus interface allows Controlwave and ROC800-series controllers to access multiple variables over a single pair of wires in a point-to-point or multi-drop configuration. The interface eliminates the need for technicians to cover hundreds of kilometres to configure and diagnose instrument problems in wide-area Scada networks. Installation and wiring costs are also reduced as centralising with fieldbus eliminates the need for extra hardware.
A Field Interface Configurator is said to make set-up and commissioning easier and faster. This software tool schedules, commissions, and creates data relationships between fieldbus devices and variables within the Controlwave or ROC800-series controller. The configurator is the only software tool needed to commission and deploy the Foundation Fieldbus interface.
