ODVA Hannover Report, Busy Year For Partnerships and IIoT

by | Apr 20, 2020 | Automation, Networking, Technology

ODVA held its annual Hannover Messe press conference today (April 20), however, we all sat at desks in our homes to attend this year. ODVA looks forward to in-person meetings at SPS in November and at Hannover in April 2021. Working with other organizations and enhancing IIoT capabilities.

In brief:

  • ODVA LOOKS TO THE FUTURE AT ITS 20TH ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS
  • OPC UA COMPANION SPECIFICATION TO BE DEVELOPED FOR CIP 
  • ETHERNET/IP Enhanced to further address industry 4.0 and IIoT
  • ODVA ENTERS INTO AGREEMENTS WITH FDT AND FIELDCOMM GROUP AND CONTINUES XDS DEVELOPMENT TO EXPAND ETHERNET/IP TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEM

Specifics from the press releases and comments in the conference:

ODVA LOOKS TO THE FUTURE AT ITS 20TH ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS

ODVA held its 20th Annual Meeting of Members in Palm Harbor, Florida, USA on March 5, 2020. With over 120 industry professionals from over 50 companies in attendance, highlights of the Annual Meeting included a panel discussion titled “Can 5G and WiFi 6 Deliver on the Factory Floor?”, a keynote speech from Amazon Web Services titled “The Effect of Digital Transformation on the Industrial Automation Product Ecosystem at the Edge and Beyond,” and an update from the organization’s leadership on the strength of and opportunities for ODVA as a whole.  

Notable topics covered at the conference included Network Diagnostics, TSN, OPC UA, Constrained Devices, Ethernet-APL, FDI packages, and PA-DIM.

The leadership for the organization was elected and announced at the Annual Meeting. ODVA’s Board of Directors has top level responsibility for strategic planning and governance and is composed of senior executives from major industrial automation device and system vendors across the globe. In the 21st term, ODVA’s Board of Directors are:  

  • Dr. Rolf Birkhofer, managing director of Endress+Hauser Process Solutions for Endress+Hauser
  • Mr. Satoshi Kojima, general manager of network product management group, controller division for OMRON
  • Mr. David Lagerstrom, president and CEO of Turck USA for Hans Turck Company
  • Mr. Raja Ramana Macha, senior vice president for innovation and technology and CTO, industrial automation for Schneider Electric
  • Mr. Samuel Pasquier, senior director of product management for IoT industrial networking and security for Cisco Systems
  • Mr. Thomas Petersen, senior director of fieldbus and system integration for Danfoss
  • Mr. Brian Reynolds, senior director of engineering, projects and automation solutions for Honeywell
  • Dr. Jürgen Weinhofer, vice-president of common architecture and technology for Rockwell Automation 

The corporate leadership of the organization collectively defines and executes the strategic plan, oversees development and publication of technology and specifications, and is responsible for governance of the organization. In the 21st term, ODVA’s corporate officers are:  

  • Dr. Al Beydoun, President & Executive Director
  • Mr. Joakim Wiberg, Chief Technology Officer
  • Ms. Adrienne Meyer, Vice President of Operations and Membership 
  • Mr. Christopher Lynch, Corporate Secretary
  • Dr. Jürgen Weinhofer, Treasurer

ODVA’s Technical Review Board (TRB) oversees the development of technology and standards for the organization including approval of technology enhancements for inclusion in the ODVA specifications which encompass the Common Industrial Protocol or “CIP” and its network adaptations of CIP – including EtherNet/IP and DeviceNet. In its 21st term, ODVA’s TRB representatives are:

  • Mr. Joakim Wiberg, Chairman, of HMS Industrial Networks
  • Mr. Raj Bandekar of Honeywell
  • Mr. Rudy Belliardi of Schneider Electric
  • Mr. Mirko Brcic of Endress+Hauser
  • Mr. Paul Didier of Cisco Systems
  • Mr. Gregory Majcher of Rockwell Automation
  • Mr. Shinji Murayama of Omron
  • Ms. Roxana Sudrijan of Molex

OPC UA COMPANION SPECIFICATION TO BE DEVELOPED FOR CIP 

ODVA has launched a joint working group with the OPC Foundation to develop an OPC UA companion specification to the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP). The collaboration between ODVA and the OPC Foundation will result in reliable, secure communications between devices that are a part of a CIP-enabled Industrial Control System (ICS) and other OPC UA enabled applications allowing communication between CIP devices and OPC UA devices as well as with cloud and enterprise level services. Common tasks required for cloud gateway appliance management will be enabled, and CIP devices will have unimpeded access to leading cloud services. The OPC UA companion specification will address the challenge of moving industrial communication and control data from the factory floor to the cloud via gateways. “Connecting manufacturing process and control data from EtherNet/IP devices to OPC UA servers will enable valuable factory floor information to be made available at the edge and beyond for enterprise wide analysis,” stated Dr. Al Beydoun, President and Executive Director at ODVA. 

The OPC UA companion specification will map CIP objects to the appropriate OPC UA information models and profiles and vice-versa. Sending data to and from the cloud from EtherNet/IP to OPC UA will be accomplished by providing useful information including discovery, identity, diagnostics, status, parameter and much more from CIP devices. Allowing critical automation information to be easily transferred from EtherNet/IP to OPC UA will lower the effort required to enable access from higher level systems, such as Analytics, ERP, or MES. The OPC UA companion specification to CIP will ensure that data will be available to Enterprise and IT systems with proper context and semantics (i.e. meaning) for quick trend analysis and insight generation. 

A joint working group, composed of members of ODVA and the OPC Foundation, will work to identify critical device to cloud use cases, such as tying warranty costs back to production variations, that will drive the scope of the work to be done. In parallel work to the joint development of the OPC UA companion specification to CIP, CIP and EtherNet/IP will be enhanced by ODVA SIGs, as needed, to ensure that all of the pertinent data is able to be understood by OPC UA without any additional work needed by end users. “The time is right for the OPC UA Companion Specification to CIP to ensure that EtherNet/IP is prepared to meet the requirements of Industry 4.0 and IIoT,” stated Dr. Al Beydoun, President and Executive Director at ODVA. 

ETHERNET/IP Enhanced to further address industry 4.0 and IIoT

The latest enhancements to The EtherNet/IP Specification provide improved network diagnostics, new methods to lower bandwidth and resource requirements for devices, and the addition of IIoT building block infrastructure. “EtherNet/IP’s continued leadership in the industrial communication space will be assured by adding new tools to manage the network, removing roadblocks to adding EtherNet/IP to the simplest of devices, and preparing for TSN with LLDP,” stated Dr. Al Beydoun, President and Executive Director at ODVA.

In addition to the recent enhancements to EtherNet/IP to allow users to obtain device diagnostics pursuant to the NE107 standard, ODVA has enhanced EtherNet/IP further to provide overall system diagnostics. The additional EtherNet/IP system diagnostics will enable a better understanding of the number of connections, resource usage, the number of Ethernet errors, missed packets, and overall CPU utilization. A common, scalable network diagnostic assembly definition for diagnostic connection points defined by other objects will enable these new statistics to help assist in network troubleshooting. Additionally, new provisions for aggregation of multiple I/O connections will provide a mechanism to multiplex many individual connections into one, which will significantly reduce network bandwidth. Runtime reconfiguration will be seamless and efficiency will be improved across the board, especially in instances where IO-Link or HART translation or modular I/O is utilized.

Updates to allow for constrained devices running on EtherNet/IP will enable UDP-only device communication with the goal of lowering resource and hardware requirements. Constrained devices are anticipated to significantly lower the cost barrier thereby further strengthening the business case to add EtherNet/IP to in-cabinet, small sensors, and other simple devices. Ethernet will be possible all the way to edge devices, including use of Single Pair Ethernet (10BASE-T1S), enabling end to end IIoT communication. EtherNet/IP, including CIP Security, has been enhanced to include constrained device definitions. Furthermore, the addition of the option to use Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) will enable nodes and infrastructure to detect other devices in near proximity, and for the physical network topology to be discovered and visualized. As a required component for TSN, the addition of LLDP lays the groundwork for easier adoption of TSN into the EtherNet/IP Specification. Along with existing network extensions, the TSN standards for sending time critical data via industrial Ethernet will be an option to meet the needs of high determinism applications, to add network design options, and to plan for the significant future increases in data traffic brought about by IT and OT convergence.

The latest enhancements to the EtherNet/IP Specificationare enabling enhanced understanding and therefore performance of the broader network, driving EtherNet/IP down to the lowest capacity devices through reducing resource requirements, and are laying the foundation for TSN. ODVA is continuing to drive the advancement of EtherNet/IP to meet the evolving requirements of IIoT and Industry 4.0 to meet the needs of CIP technology users both today and tomorrow. 

ODVA ENTERS INTO AGREEMENTS WITH FDT AND FIELDCOMM GROUP AND CONTINUES XDS DEVELOPMENT TO EXPAND ETHERNET/IP TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEM

ODVA  has entered into separate agreements to further integrate FDT and FDI technologies into EtherNeat/IP. Additional device description work on the next generation xDS for CIP devices also continues to move forward.  “ODVA is committed to making EtherNet/IP a best in class communication network for both the discrete and process industries and this is another significant step in that journey” said Dr. Al Beydoun, President and Executive Director of ODVA.

Joint ODVA and FDT Group activities are underway to develop an FDT communications annex to support the ODVA Common Industrial Protocol (“CIP”) on the new FDT 3.0/FITS (“FITS”) platform. The FDT Group has agreed to form an annex project group to develop a communications annex for FITS to support CIP based networks such as EtherNet/IP. FITS extends the client server / architecture concept that was available in FDT2 to now enable full access via the edge, the cloud, the Web and OPC UA. FITS is platform independent through the use of an open .NET Core as well as HTML 5 and JavaScript. 

FDT technology standardizes the configuration interface between field devices and control systems, independent of communication protocol, allowing streamlined access to device parameters.  When FITS is used with CIP and network adaptations such as EtherNet/IP, the resulting system provides users with a feature-rich interoperable environment for commissioning, control, and diagnostics. FITS also extends the interoperability of CIP Networks with other network technologies by enabling the development of network independent common software tools.

Separately, members of ODVA and the Fieldcomm Group (FCG) are working together to enhance the FDI Package Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and FDI Host Components to support EtherNet/IP. The goal is to allow EtherNet/IP to work more efficiently and seamlessly with FDI technology for the benefit of implementers. The FDI Device Package IDE makes writing, running and testing FDI Device Packages easier and more efficient by providing the tools for industrial communication devices across multiple communication protocols in one application. 

With easier creation of FDI Device Packages for vendors, more end users will see significant improvement in configuration, commissioning, diagnosis, and calibration as more EtherNet/IP devices support FDI. Control systems, configurators, and asset management software that supports FDI will be able to take advantage of EtherNet/IP devices with FDI Device Packages. The inclusion of FDI Device Packages improves the interoperability and lowers the commissioning burden on end users for EtherNet/IP devices.

ODVA is also engaged in another device configuration enhancement effort via a Special Interest Group (SIG) that is making progress on a new specification for the next generation of digitized descriptions for EtherNet/IP device data, known as xDS. xDS will allow for workflow-driven device description files for device integration such as network and security configuration and digitized business models such as digital twins and cloud-based analytics. In addition to the specification efforts, ODVA is working on tools to simplify development of xDS device description files and their consumption by device integration tools, as well as conformance tests for xDS files.

The xDS device description for CIP devices will ultimately serve as a replacement for EDS files. xDS will enable the use of a wide array of tools and systems for both the process and discrete industries using established technologies. The rich information from the xDS customized device information file can be exposed to both FITS and FDI Device Packages. The work on xDS along with the activities outlined with the FDT Group and FCG ensures ODVA is in alignment with the next generation of value-added user interface, business logic, and device information technologies. ODVA’s partnership with FDT and FCG will ensure that both vendors and end users have the desired solutions and options to best meet their needs.  

ODVA is continuing to enhance EtherNet/IP to best meet the needs of industrial automation customers across the spectrum of vertical markets. These joint efforts with the FDT Group and FCG along with the xDS specification enhancement work are a part of the expansion of the EtherNet/IP technology ecosystem which will result in improving the experience of both device vendors and end users as well as to prepare for a future driven by Industry 4.0 and IIoT. The joint efforts between ODVA and the FDT Group and between ODVA and FCG will both benefit from the robust CIP information model presented by xDS.

204 Wireless Power for IoT Devices via Light Podcast Interview

by | Apr 17, 2020 | Internet of Things, Podcast, Technology

In a turnaround, this time I’m doing an interview. First one in years. This episode is an interview with Yuval Boger, CMO of Wi-Charge, who talks about wireless remote power for charging IoT devices with light. There was a gap between this and my last podcast. In the interim, we sold a house, bought a house, and moved to another state–all at the beginning of the covid-19 rise and the shelter-in-place orders. It has been crazy times. Now, we’ve plenty of time to get used to the new house. I hope everyone listening is doing well.

Application Kits Simplify Collaborative Robotics (Cobot) Deployments

by | Apr 16, 2020 | Automation, Technology

I spent years learning to program and apply robotics in manufacturing. Then they became less interesting to me as most innovation focused on bigger and faster. Enter the collaborative robot (Cobot) and autonomous robot product lines. Things are becoming interesting again, even though for the most part they are doing the same basic tasks—mostly pick-and-place.

Emails between the Universal Robots PR person and me have been similar to a hot line as one after another innovation is announced. I have two here that sort of go together. First, Universal Robots announce the development of application kits. Then we had a big virtual press conference for the announcement of one of these, the ActivNav Autonomous Bin Picking system.

Application Kits

These are popular in MES software, but they are also useful for the cobot market. Twenty proven software and hardware kits for the most popular cobot applications are now available on the UR+ platform, the industry’s largest and most comprehensive ecosystem of products certified to integrate seamlessly with cobots from Universal Robots (UR). By reducing recurring engineering decisions for common applications, the ’Plug and Produce’ kits decrease project risk and complexity and are ready for fast implementation for tasks such as finishing, inspection, assembly, machine tending, material removal, dispensing, and material handling.

“As the world’s leader in collaborative robots, Universal Robots is pleased to extend our award-winning UR+ ecosystem to include certified cobot applications,” says Jim Lawton, VP of Product and Applications Management at Universal Robots. “It’s a new arena where customers no longer have to select and specify cobot peripherals piecemeal, but instead get a kit with most of the needed components for their desired application. The results are faster deployment and faster payback.”

The expanded UR+ ecosystem now features two different categories: components and application kits. The new application kit category features a total of 20 kits with more to come. The kits all come with “URCap” software that enables users to control all peripherals directly from the UR cobot’s own teach pendant in a rich 3D user interface.

ActiNav UR+ application kit

The complexity of automated bin picking is well-known throughout the industry, requiring efforts in both integration and programming. Today, most bin picking products focus on vision and often require hundreds of lines of additional programming to bridge the gap from “pick” to “place” – especially if the “place” is not just dropping into a box or tote but accurately inserting the part into a fixture for further processing. ActiNav Autonomous Bin Picking allows manufacturers with limited or no bin picking deployment expertise to achieve high machine uptime and accurate part placement with few operator interventions.

ActiNav combines real-time autonomous motion control, collaborative robotics, vision, and sensor systems in one easy to use, fast to deploy, and cost-effective kit. The system requires no vision or robotic programming expertise, but is instead based on a “teach-by-demonstration” principle using a six-step, wizard-guided setup process integrated into the UR cobot teach pendant. ActiNav can be deployed by manufacturers’ in-house automation teams or through assistance from a UR distributor or integrator.

“Machine tending has always been one of the mainstay applications for our collaborative robot arms,” says VP of Product and Applications Management at Universal Robots, Jim Lawton. “We discovered a significant market need for a simple solution that enables UR cobots to autonomously locate and pick parts out of deep bins and place them precisely into a machine. This is not pick and drop; this is accurate pick and part-oriented placement.”

ActiNav is available through UR’s distribution channel and via the new UR+ Application Kits platform. ActiNav works with UR’s UR5e and UR10e e-Series cobots, a UR+ component or user-defined end effector, and application-specific frame or fixture as needed. The kit includes the Autonomous Motion Module (AMM) and ActiNav URCap user interface software, along with a choice of 3D sensors.

“Parts are often already in bins, so the most flexible and scalable option is to deliver that bin of parts to the machine and then pick them directly from the bin and place them into the machine,” Lawton adds. “This minimizes floor space and reduces the need for part-specific tooling.”

Where Is Shift to Digital Transformation Lagging?

by | Apr 15, 2020 | Leadership, Manufacturing IT, Personal Development

My new office is getting organized. Better than my outside life. Remind me why we moved 200 miles north when I went outside for some exercise in 0.5-in. of snow with some icy patches on the trail. Didn’t do my Fartlek run this morning. But, I am relishing one of my new favorite news sites–Morning Brew. Check it out.

I might have a new office with the getting into a new routine with a new house and neighborhood plus the revised routine due to shelter-in-place. Some things remain the same. Half of my emails deal with “Digital Transformation.”

Sometimes I think we’ve been going down this road for such a long time that no one except the worst of the laggards is not already reaping dividends from digital projects.

Speaking of laggards, let me drift a moment into what must be a gross lack of leadership and management. No, I’m talking about government.

Virginia-based Smithfield Foods announced Sunday that it is closing its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls until further notice after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus — a step the head of the company warned could hurt the nation’s meat supply.

Here is a statistic—Health officials said Sunday that 293 of the 730 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in South Dakota work at the plant.

So what does our genius leader say? Is he concerned about the health and safety of his workers for whom he has responsibility? Well, “The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,“ Smithfield president and CEO Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement. “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”

Sounds more like he’s whining than stepping up to the plate taking responsibility and changing the culture and workplace.

Back to the regularly scheduled program—lack of digital transformation.

I read every blog post of Seth Godin and listen to his awesome podcast. Marketing and management along with thinking is his schtick not so much tech. But yesterday, he reached out and touched a sour note for our manufacturing and production leaders.

Try this on:

Some of the shift to digital is unwanted, fraught with risk and lonely.

But in some areas, organizations and leaders are realizing that it’s actually more powerful and efficient.

So why didn’t you do it before?

Because it’s easier to follow.

Because it’s more comfortable to stay where we are.

Waiting to do something because you’re forced to is rarely a positive approach to growth or leadership. Abrupt shifts against our will may cause change, but they’re inefficient and destabilizing.

Next time, take the lead. Not because you have to, but because you can.

Be like Seth. Take the lead—because you can.

State of the Edge Merges with LF Edge to Provide Unified Edge Computing Thought Leadership

by | Apr 14, 2020 | Manufacturing IT, Standards

The “edge” has become one of the most popular words in manufacturing enterprise architecture over the past several years. Want to know what it is? Here is an organization attempting a definition. Linux Foundation is definitely an information source to bookmark. Maybe even get involved with.

The news in short:

• State of the Edge will continue as the industry’s first open research program on edge computing

• Under LF Edge, State of the Edge, Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the Landscape will continue to pave the way for industry alignment

LF Edge, an umbrella organization under The Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, announced that it has acquired State of the Edge, a vendor-neutral platform for open research on edge computing. The State of the Edge will merge with Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the combined project will assume the State of the Edge name as a Stage 2 project (growth) under LF Edge.

Founded in 2017 by industry pioneers Vapor IO, Packet by Equinix, Edge Gravity by Ericsson, Arm, and Rafay Systems, the State of the Edge organization has published three major edge research reports, all offered free- of- charge under a Creative Commons license: the 2018 State of the Edge report, the 2019 Data at the Edge report and, most recently, the 2020 State of the Edge report. The organization’s founding co-chairs, Matthew Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO, and Jacob Smith, VP Bare Metal Strategy & Marketing of Equinix, will remain as co-chairs of State of the Edge.

“We launched State of the Edge in 2018 as an effort to align and educate the market on what edge computing truly is, and what is needed to implement it,” said Trifiro. “Edge computing represents a long-term transformation of the Internet, and together this coalition has created a community-supported research model second to none. We’re thrilled to contribute this program to LF Edge, where we believe it can flourish even further.”

With its open governance model, LF Edge will continue to advance the State of the Edge under the project’s original mission, which has been to accelerate the edge computing industry by developing free, shareable research that can be used by all.

“As edge computing continues to evolve and expand, our goal with State of the Edge is to bring clarity and simplicity to the critical infrastructure required to support the future of edge computing,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “The LF Edge projects span the continuum from cloud to device and, with the addition of State of the Edge, we’ll be able to bring our community and ecosystem closer to a more comprehensive edge stack, delivering shared innovation across technology sectors at the edge”.

The State of the Edge project will manage and produce the following assets under the LF Edge umbrella:

• State of the Edge reports (the 2020 report was published in Q4 2019; the 2021 report is scheduled for Q4 2020)

• Open Glossary of Edge Computing

• Edge Computing Landscape

All State of the Edge projects will continue to be produced and funded collaboratively, with an explicit goal of producing original research without vendor bias and involving a diverse set of stakeholders. Supported by member funds and a community-driven philosophy, the State of the Edge mission has been to accelerate the edge computing industry by developing free, shareable research that can be used by all. The program will continue alongside a community that cares deeply about edge computing and the innovations that will be required to bring its promise to fruition.

Launched last January, LF Edge’s projects (Akraino Edge Stack, Baetyl, EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge and Project EVE) support emerging edge applications across areas such as non-traditional video and connected things that require lower latency, and faster processing and mobility. By forming a software stack that brings the best of cloud, enterprise and telecom, LF Edge helps to unify a fragmented edge market around a common, open vision for the future of the industry.

For information on how to participate in the project, please contact [email protected].

Resources

• LF Edge website

• State of the Edge website

• Blog

About The Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration.

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