Automation Cos Tout Joint FDI, EDDL Effort

The HART Communication Foundation, Emerson Process Management and ABB are among a group of automation organizations that have announced support for accelerating the deployment of the Field Device Integration (FDI) technology by enlarging the scope of the EDDL Cooperation Team into the new FDI Cooperation effort. The FDI Cooperation supports a uniform device integration solution for process industries across all control and host systems, devices and field device communication protocols.

The new cooperation initially consists of major technology trade organizations, FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, HART Communication Foundation, OPC Foundation and PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation, and control equipment supplier companies, ABB, Emerson, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell, Invensys, Siemens and Yokogawa. The addition of these supplier companies, who have agreed to support FDI solutions in their systems and products, will provide resources to assist in the completion of this project.

In addition to the finalization of the FDI specification, which is scheduled for mid-2010, the scope of the enlarged FDI Cooperation is to cover common design and test tools, common binary format and interpreter across the protocols of HART, FF and PROFIBUS.

The FDI project was initially kicked-off at the 2007 Hanover Fair, at which time ECT welcomed FDT Group with the primary objective of harmonizing EDDL and FDT/DTM technologies. Since then, the project has carefully shaped the technology direction for the converged FDI solution.