In my last newsletter (you can sign up on the right sidebar for my special content newsletter), I discussed the many press releases issued during the past few weeks on the Internet of Things (IoT) for industry.
Maryanne Steidinger, director product marketing operations for Schneider Electric software, posited in a blog post that control and process engineers have actually been implementing the IoT for many years. Let’s consider the control and information buses such as DeviceNet, Profibus, CC-Link, EtherCAT, PowerLink, and the like, to be the beginnings of networking things.
Carl Henning, deputy director of PI-NA (the Profibus/Profinet organization), writes, “Maryanne is right. And even before fieldbuses, the proliferation of electrical and electronic sensors and actuators was paving the way. As more were added, the more we needed fieldbuses.”
Much of the interest is generated by consumer applications. That generates a lot wider media coverage. This industry is not always behind the technological curve.
