Radar Level Transmitter for Safe, Optimised Operations

Emer­son has intro­duced the Rose­mount 3408 Lev­el Trans­mit­ter, a non-con­tact­ing radar device designed to opti­mise ease-of-use at every touch­point, lead­ing to increased site and work­er safe­ty and enhanced plant per­for­mance. The Rose­mount 3408 is a ver­sa­tile lev­el mea­sure­ment solu­tion, suit­able for use in a wide range of indus­tries and appli­ca­tions, such as chem­i­cal stor­age, mix­ing tanks and open air applications.

While the ben­e­fits of radar lev­el mea­sure­ment are wide­ly acknowl­edged, lead­ing to the technology’s fast-grow­ing adop­tion across mul­ti­ple indus­tries, radars are still some­times per­ceived as being com­plex to com­mis­sion, oper­ate and main­tain. Address­ing this con­cern, the device pro­vides a range of func­tions that reduce com­plex­i­ty through­out its life­cy­cle, includ­ing a high­ly intu­itive inter­face, Blue­tooth wire­less tech­nol­o­gy remote capa­bil­i­ties, pre­dic­tive alerts, in-situ ver­i­fi­ca­tion, data his­to­ri­an and an upgrade­able design.

The user inter­face pro­vides clear pic­to­r­i­al instruc­tions, allow­ing oper­a­tors to be eas­i­ly guid­ed through instal­la­tion, com­mis­sion­ing, proof-test­ing, oper­a­tion and main­te­nance. This increased ease-of-use gives process and man­u­fac­tur­ing organ­i­sa­tions the con­fi­dence to replace time-con­sum­ing man­u­al pro­ce­dures, there­by help­ing to increase safe­ty and max­imise productivity.

The new device is based on fre­quen­cy mod­u­lat­ed con­tin­u­ous wave (FMCW) tech­nol­o­gy, which enables extreme­ly accu­rate and reli­able mea­sure­ment, even in chal­leng­ing process envi­ron­ments. It is also suit­able for use in crit­i­cal safe­ty appli­ca­tions such as over­fill pre­ven­tion, as it is Safe­ty Integri­ty Lev­el (SIL) 2‑certified and designed accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Elec­trotech­ni­cal Commission’s IEC 61508 stan­dard relat­ing to func­tion­al safety.

Emerson’s pro­pri­etary Smart Meter Ver­i­fi­ca­tion soft­ware pro­vides an easy means of ver­i­fy­ing the health of the device, with­out inter­rupt­ing the process. Offi­cial records of device ver­i­fi­ca­tion are gen­er­at­ed, sim­pli­fy­ing com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments. In addi­tion, an advanced diag­nos­tics suite con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tors key device health and process para­me­ters. This pro­vides action­able infor­ma­tion and pre­dic­tive alerts that sup­port pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance strate­gies, stream­line trou­bleshoot­ing and help increase process avail­abil­i­ty. A built-in his­to­ri­an enables users to access stored process data and alerts to gain process insights and aid troubleshooting.

The trans­mit­ter can be proof-test­ed remote­ly and in-situ, which makes the pro­ce­dure quick and easy, sav­ing time and increas­ing plant and work­er safe­ty. In the event of device fail­ure, its exchange­able design enables the sim­ple replace­ment of a cas­sette with­in the trans­mit­ter hous­ing, rather than replac­ing the entire trans­mit­ter head. This saves both time and mate­ri­als, mak­ing the device extreme­ly cost-effective.

“The new gen­er­a­tion of engi­neers expect mod­ern automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy to be very easy to imple­ment, oper­ate and main­tain,” said Thense Kors­bo, direc­tor of prod­uct man­age­ment for Emerson’s radar lev­el mea­sure­ment busi­ness. “The onus is there­fore on us to pro­vide solu­tions that sim­pli­fy oper­a­tor tasks as much as pos­si­ble, espe­cial­ly in safe­ty-crit­i­cal appli­ca­tions such as over­fill pre­ven­tion, and this was Emerson’s focus when design­ing the Rose­mount 3408. This opti­mised ease-of-use will help organ­i­sa­tions improve plant effi­cien­cy, reach their pro­duc­tion tar­gets and achieve the high­est lev­els of safety.”