Digital Communications Interface for Industry 4.0

Emer­son intro­duced its Asco Numat­ics Sen­tron­ic Plus (Series 614) and Sen­tron­ic LP (Series 617) pro­por­tion­al pres­sure con­trol valves with the inte­gra­tion of IO-Link com­mu­ni­ca­tions to pro­vide cost-effec­tive and reli­able con­trol and diag­nos­tics in sup­port of pre­dic­tive main­te­nance prac­tices. Using IO-Link com­mu­ni­ca­tions to gain insight into these devices on the fac­to­ry floor sup­ports future imple­men­ta­tion of Indus­try 4.0 and Indus­tri­al Inter­net of Things (IIoT) appli­ca­tions that will con­tribute toward greater plant reli­a­bil­i­ty, avail­abil­i­ty and profitability.
The ver­sa­tile Sen­tron­ic Plus and Sen­tron­ic LP valves enable process opti­mi­sa­tion, regard­less of appli­ca­tion require­ments. Sen­tron­ic Plus dig­i­tal­ly oper­at­ed pres­sure reg­u­la­tor valves accu­rate­ly adjust pres­sure, flow, force, speed and lin­ear or angu­lar posi­tions. They reg­u­late pres­sure up to 12 bar (174 psi) and are elec­tro­mag­net­ic-com­pat­i­ble accord­ing to Elec­tro­mag­net­ic Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty (EMC) Direc­tive 2014/30/EU. Sen­tron­ic Low Pow­er (LP) valves are a high­ly effi­cient option for pres­sure reg­u­la­tion require­ments, offer­ing a small foot­print, an easy-to-use and mod­u­lar design, and advanced soft­ware capa­bil­i­ties. Their low-pow­er con­sump­tion of less than four watts sup­ports appli­ca­tions where pow­er is limited.
IO-Link is increas­ing­ly being applied to a range of automa­tion appli­ca­tions, pro­vid­ing a low-cost dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion inter­face for sen­sors, actu­a­tors and con­trollers via unshield­ed, indus­try-stan­dard M12 I/O cables. To reduce main­te­nance time and com­plex­i­ty, the IO-Link mod­ule allows the Sen­tron­ic valves to iden­ti­fy and con­fig­ure them­selves auto­mat­i­cal­ly dur­ing com­po­nent replace­ment, there­by elim­i­nat­ing the need for recon­fig­u­ra­tion via a lap­top. Sup­port­ing greater ease-of-use, the addi­tion of IO-Link tech­nol­o­gy to the Sen­tron­ic valves unique­ly enables device para­me­ters to be changed direct­ly with the PLC dur­ing a process with­out the need of data acqui­si­tion software.
“Emer­son is a lead­ing inno­va­tor in dri­ving IIoT tech­nolo­gies and strate­gies to facil­i­tate the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of our cus­tomers’ oper­a­tions across a broad range of indus­tries,” said Har­ald Stein­le, engi­neer­ing man­ag­er for pro­por­tion­al prod­ucts at Emer­son Automa­tion Solu­tions. “Adding IO-Link capa­bil­i­ty to the Sen­tron­ic Plus and Sen­tron­ic LP valves cre­ates sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits for users. It not only makes the devices eas­i­er to con­trol and oper­ate, but also pre­pares them for future inte­gra­tion with IIoT appli­ca­tions, enabling improve­ments in plant reli­a­bil­i­ty and availability.”
Increas­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty of choice, the new IO-Link inter­face is com­pat­i­ble with the full range of Sen­tron­ic LP Series 617 valves, as well as the Sen­tron­ic Plus Series 614 valves in sizes DN3 and DN6. These valves enable process opti­mi­sa­tion in appli­ca­tions such as fill­ing machines in food or cos­met­ics fac­to­ries, assem­bly machines, con­vey­ors and robot­ic hands.