It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, meaning that a camel-like system, with all its ad-hoc suitability for certain environments, is ungainly compared to sleek designs developed with a uniform vision and architecture. That parable applies to engineered control systems perhaps even more than to beasts. An integrated, compatible design conforming to recognized standards is key to a robust, successful and enduring system. That brings us round-about to the Texas Instruments (TI) Turnkey IO-Link Sensor Transmitter.
TI produces a wide variety of interoperable process control components with a great deal of thought given to integration and compatibility. One example is the TI Designs reference design IO_Link Sensor Transmitter for factory automation, process control, portable instrumentation, and similar applications. IO-Link is a standard communications protocol used to link with sensors and actuators. It allows several types of information to be exchanged such as process data, service data, and exceptional events such as alarms and other monitoring information.
TI provides the tools needed for customization including design methodology, prototyping platform and comprehensive documentation. It is also supported by an environment of on-line help, engineer-to-engineer wikis, and an array of available related products.
System Description
The IO-Link Sensor Transmitter is a point-to-point protocol standardized as IEC 611131-9 for industrial automation and control applications. The protocol consists of physical, communications, data-link and application layers. The transmitter's modular design enables the engineer to detach sections of the circuit board to connect RTDs or one's own digital sensor.
An ADS1220 offers low power ADC with a serial peripheral interface (SPI) for read-back from the microcontroller (MCU). An MSP430FR5738 features embedded Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (FRAM) nonvolatile memory which brings unique capabilities for field updates and logging. Finally, an SN65HVD101, a dedicated product, provides an interface for IO-Link buses and provides full physical layer of the OSI model support and a low-dropout regulator to power the rest of the system.
Applications of this transmitter include both simulation studies and in-line process control applications. This product was clearly developed to quickly prototype designs that are compatible with similar equipment.
The adherence of this device to existing engineering standards such as IEC 61131-9 and to IO-Link in particular is another plus. A portfolio of documentation and application notes for engineers completes the package. Test data is available for temperature stability, power transients and other performance and reliability considerations.
One of the many areas that can benefit from this and related products is the textile industry. Textiles may be the oldest industry in North America, having been established in the 18th century with factories near every significant waterfall. But improvements over the years were sporadic and ad-hoc, and the industry has recently woken up to a legacy infrastructure that is outdated, and inefficient.
Cross-disciplinary technologists were enlisted to implement new and better systems all along the supply chain, including new factory efficiencies, just-in-time manufacturing processes, and many other changes that required modern, compatible instruments that adhere to IEC and other applicable standards. It is too soon to know how well these improvements will staunch the flow of textile manufacture to other continents, but the progress has been measurable, and there is no turning back.
Impression
The sensor processing aspect of a process control system is truly the nervous system of the organism. And clearly a stable, sensitive, and reliable nervous system is key to the performance of the whole, whether it is a camel, a horse, or a factory automation control room. The TIDA-00188 IO-Link Sensor Transmitter is a worthy building block of such as system.
Texas Instruments has paid a fee to ENGINEERING.com to promote their industrial electronic solutions. They have had no editorial input to this post. All opinions are mine –Arnie Peskin