Industry 4.0 Implementation for HART Devices

An essential feature of modern Industry 4.0 solutions is the networking of machines and plants. When a continuous digital data flow is guaranteed across all production levels, data from intelligent field devices can provide well-founded information on the plant status. This helps avoid unplanned outages, reduce downtimes, and lower maintenance costs. But how does this work ideally?

Ideally, asset, diagnostic, and process data from field devices are stored in real-time and transferred directly from the field to a tablet. Maintenance personnel have a clear, comprehensive overview of aggregated information at all times, enabling informed decisions that speed up troubleshooting. To realize this:

• Data from field devices must be transparently integrated into higher layers for further processing, analysis, and visualization.
• Open communication standards must be applied to ensure interoperability between various devices.

Today, users can choose from several integration technologies, each with a different approach: 

• EDD (Electronic Device Description) 
• FDT/DTM (Field Device Tool, Device Type Manager)
• FDI (Field Device Integration) 

These technologies are based on the traditional automation pyramid and are not transparent at all levels. Data is collected from field devices via Fieldbus or HART and converted at the SCADA level for use by applications. These technologies rely on software products that must be installed on terminal equipment to establish a connection, with no provision for further machine processing of the data.

The conventional automation pyramid has proven reliable over many years but lacks the flexibility needed for Industry 4.0 solutions. Namur (the “User Association of Automation Technology in Process Industries”) has extended the existing structure with the Namur Open Architecture (NOA) concept, incorporating an open OPC UA interface. NOA describes how to export data to the system via an open OPC UA interface from the existing automation world for monitoring and optimization, leaving core automation tasks largely unaffected. Alternatively, a second communication channel can directly access information from existing field devices.
 

Against this background, HART-IP as an open interface is gaining attention from users and system providers. The HART-IP protocol has been part of the FieldComm Group's HCF network management specification since June 2012. These specifications define the network layer and network management requirements for HART-compatible networks, enabling plant-wide, large-scale solutions with high interoperability between devices and applications. The protocol runs over IP-based networks such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi and works over UDP and TCP with IPv4 or IPv6. The HART IP application layer is based on the same commands as the 4 to 20 mA HART protocol.
 

In implementing the NOA concept, devices provide the open, OPC UA-based NOA interface at various levels of the automation structure. Using an embedded OPC UA server, the NOA information model can be implemented by a remote I/O system, a gateway, or directly by field devices with an Ethernet connection. The NOA diode ensures secure read-only access to the data.

With its smartLink HW-DP, Softing offers a NOA-compliant gateway that collects data from HART devices via PROFIBUS remote I/Os and makes it available via OPC UA in accordance with the companion specification. In connection with Secure Integration Server, which delivers the data unilaterally to the outside world, Softing already offers the functionality of a NOA diode. 

The HART IP server integrated in the smartLink HW-DP enables straightforward and transparent access to HART field devices via Ethernet. This enables the use of common HART IP clients such as the AMS Device Manager from Emerson, ABB FIM or E+H FieldCare. Using these reliable applications, HART field devices can be easily parameterized, configured, monitored and evaluated.