Instrumentation

Embedded Industrial Computer for Image Capture

Peter Cleaveland — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:09:38 +0000

The 4Sight GP is a high-performance embedded system for image capture, processing, display and I/O.

Emerson Acquires Level Measurement Maker ISE Magtech

epakowski — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:17:50 +0000

Emerson announced it has acquired ISE Magtech, enabling Emerson Process Management to strengthen its level measurement solutions in the oil and gas, refining, chemical, and power generation industries.

Machine Vision Issues for Automation

George Shurtleff — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:12:13 +0000

Machine vision has experienced a rapid rise during the last years.

Get Paid to Cut Power Consumption

George Shurtleff — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:27:19 +0000

The ability to measure and model energy consumption has benefits that go beyond allocating energy costs to products and processes.

Engineering School Innovations: Research Flow Loop

Dave Greenfield — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:49 +0000

The research flow loop created by students at the Univeristy of Tulsa is used to study how a clean hole can be created during the drilling process. Major components include an 81 foot long transparent pipe, a gigabit Ethernet camera, a 2 hp motor, and cable carrier system.

Energy Management Road Shows Announced

Grant Gerke — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:58:52 +0000

Building on a partnership created last year, Opto 22 will sponsor eSight's Energy's live road shows for the rest of 2012. The energy management road shows are a series of live events delving into the role of power monitoring and energy analysis in improving building, factory and industrial plant energy efficiency.

Standards Help Industrial Wireless Devices Gain Traction

epakowski — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:07:53 +0000

The prospect of adding wireless devices to the process automation architecture is a compelling one from the perspective of tangible business benefits and incremental operational improvements.

Metso Acquires South Korean Globe Valve Maker

epakowski — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:53:23 +0000

Metso strengthens its offering for customers in oil and gas and power by acquiring a globe valve technology and service company, Valstone Control Inc. in South Korea (Valstone).

Application: Europe's Biggest Hyperbaric Chamber

George Shurtleff — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:31:39 +0000

The Italian company Advanced Technology Valve (ATV, www.atvspa.com), one of the four main submarine valves producers in the world, has built the biggest hyperbaric chamber for civil purposes in Europe to test its products. ATV’s products had a fundamental role in stopping the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Robots in Packaging: The Integration Imperative

George Shurtleff — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:56:05 +0000

Faced with the need to respond rapidly to an increasing diversity of product, packagers are demanding more flexible packaging machines. OEMs and control system vendors are responding with systems that promise less — less complexity, less engineering and programming time, and less expense.

Vision and Robotics: What’s Coming

George Shurtleff — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:46:37 +0000

Vision is becoming a more attractive element of robotic packaging applications.

Integrating Pneumatics into Safety Circuits

George Shurtleff — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 13:20:38 +0000

Rodney Law finds it surprising just how many people have ignored pneumatic power in the past when they designed their safety systems.

Dual Display Fiber Optic Amplifier

George Shurtleff — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:53:33 +0000

The DF-G1 Expert is a programmable dual display fiber optic amplifier with two digital displays showing signal level and threshold simultaneously.

Machine Vision Cameras with CMOS Sensors, Dual GigE

Peter Cleaveland — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:33:22 +0000

The HXG cameras combine the latest CMOS sensor technology with a dual GigE interface and PoE (Power over Ethernet).

Automation Lessons Learned from March 11 Disasters in Japan

George Shurtleff — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:08:31 +0000

On July 22, four months after the unprecedented earthquake and tsunami struck the Pacific Coast side of eastern Japan, Japanese engineers from various process and other industries gathered in Tokyo to participate in a series of panel discussions entitled, “What Automation Should Learn From the 3/11 Disasters.” ARC Advisory Group and the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE) jointly organized the panels , which were held as a session at ARC Advisory Group’s 2011 Japan Forum in Tokyo.

Digital I/O High-Speed Recording System

George Shurtleff — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:33:06 +0000

First in a new family of COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) turnkey high-speed digital recorders, the Talon RTS 2715 can continuously record up to two 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) data streams with zero data loss onto either magnetic or solid-state disk drive array.

Virtual Chart Recorder for Temp, Humidity

George Shurtleff — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:06:27 +0000

The iTHX-SD transmitter lets users view virtual charts and record temperature, relative humidity and dew point over an Ethernet network or the Internet with no special software—just a Web browser.

Remote Thermal Monitoring Systems

George Shurtleff — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:07:36 +0000

Two new remote monitoring systems feature extensive thermal analysis functions and Ethernet/IP connectivity, while protective housings enable real time remote temperature analysis outdoors and in hazardous locations.

Avoid the Drama of Downtime

George Shurtleff — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:04:26 +0000

There are lots of analog devices still in the field and not many new plants are being built right now, so upgrades are taking center stage. But do you simply enhance the current infrastructure with digital devices, or adopt an entirely new control strategy?

Current Readings from Data Loggers

George Shurtleff — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:34:24 +0000

Current Readings Monitor is software for the viewing of current readings data recorded by RTR-500 Series wireless data loggers.

Packaging: Gas Mixer with Digital Mass Flow Controller

George Shurtleff — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:14:58 +0000

KM-Flow gas mixer with digital mass flow controller targets food industry packaging that requires a protective atmosphere, especially in a fully-automatic inert gas packaging process with permanent monitoring and fault correction.

Antenna for liquid and slurry measurement

George Shurtleff — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:21:11 +0000

The Sitrans LR250 radar level transmitter with a new threaded PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) antenna for liquid and slurry measurement opens up new applications for this non-contacting level transmitter in extreme conditions such as liquid and slurry.

CAN to USB Data Logger

George Shurtleff — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:53:57 +0000

High-speed controller area network (CAN) to USB data logger boasts the ability to run user-developed scripts to suit a wide variety of CAN networking applications.

Phoenix Contact Joins ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute

Renee Robbins Bassett — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:57:24 +0000

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute announced that Phoenix Contact has joined the group as a supplier member, supporting development of products compatible with the ISA100.11a standard.

Machine Control: Measuring Impact with Arrow-like Precision

Jenn Brink — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:46:33 +0000

Because MEMS devices allow so much useful information to be precisely recorded, industrial and consumer product designers can quickly identify factors to improve performance.