Standardising communications with field device tool technology

The cause of FDT/DTM technology is being championed by the not-for-profit FDT Groupa collaboration of nearly 80 international automation companies

The cause of FDT/DTM technology is being championed by the not-for-profit FDT Groupa collaboration of nearly 80 international automation companies. Recently these numbers have been swelled by the addition of membership of Petronasthe national oil and gas company of MalaysiaAuma and Technical University Dresden.Commenting on the new members in the March edition of FDT NewsletterFDT board chairman Hartmut Wallraf said: "With ShellSaudi Aramco and Chevron already membersPetronas further strengthens the recognition and acceptance of FDT in the oil and gas market. Considering that this is one of the most active automation markets worldwideFDT technology is poised to further seize this opportunity."Milestone In the same issueWallraf also announced that FDT specification has reached a major milestone: "The most important target of the FDT Group is to provide the FDT specification as an open and freely available international standard for the benefit of end users worldwide. The FDT Group has now made one further big step towards achieving this goal."In the International Electrical Commission (IEC) process for approval of international standardsall parts of the FDT standard are issued for vote among 19 countries worldwide as a committee draft for vote (CDV).Style guide The related working groupIEC SC65E WG4has managed to satisfy two of the most requested requirements by end users: firstthe separation of FDT technology into a platform independent part and the mapping on Microsoft technology into a technical description; secondthe addition of a style guide description for DTMs."The voting period ends in August 2008 and the FDT Group is very confident that the overall vote will be positive.The FDT Group continues its activities to bring the system providers and the device manufacturers together in order to provide end users with integrated solutions right out of the box" noted Wallraf.Since November 200722 FDT Group member companies have participated in a project at the facility of Dietz Automation in NeukirchenGermany.The project is intended to test the interoperability of the FDT/DTM technology in a very diverse setting.The test system setup includes many products from different vendors; seven frames (systems or engineering tools) from five vendors21 devices with DTMs from 13 vendorsand six communication DTMs from four vendors.The system currently uses the most familiar digital protocols; PROFIBUSHARTand FOUNDATION fieldbus. By checking the interactions between these systems and devicesthe interoperability tests weed out the common problems and offer the end user maximum assurance for a problem free implementation of their FDT/DTM applications in their automation projects.As a precondition to test participationall DTMs had to be certified through the FDT group certification process. During the preparation phasesparticipants had the opportunity to perform the tests on their own.Additionallywhile setting up the testa test procedure was developed for the frames. This will be the base for the future frame certification procedure. During the project start-upall the frames involved in this test passed the frame test procedure and were smoothly integrated in the system. The test phase started in February and is scheduled to be completed in May."As an exciting side benefitsome of the companies accessed the test system via internet and tested their DTMs on-linefurther challenging their DTM tools and frames with this very diverse test environment. This proved to be an advantage to companies located in North America and/or Asia.The FDT Group intends to turn this test system into a permanent test and certification facility and to make it a part of the FDT certification process" added Wallraf.Achim Laubensteinvice president of technologydeclared: "This test facility further completes the FDT certification procedure. Besides the DTM certificationwe will have shortly a frame certification procedure and a permanent interoperability test bed. This will ensure maximum robustness for the FDT certified products and provide end users the insurance of smooth project implementation."Another recent development is the launch of the dtmINSPECTORa software tool which automatically and systematically tests the conformance of DTMs with the FDT specification. All DTMssuch as communication-device and gateway-DTMscan be tested with this tool.It gives the DTM manufacturer the best possible development support and ensures a speedy and trouble-free certification of the DTMs.By using dtmINSPECTOR through the DTM development processthe developer picks up right away the differences between the developing software and the FDT specification.It is possible to debug the DTM during the test run for the direct monitoring of the code interaction. This speeds up troubleshooting and significantly decreases the cost of error correction – early detection of errors leads to lower costs for bug fixing.In the same waythe DTM certification test becomes a formality. The certification tests in the accredited test sites are also executed with the dtmINSPECTOR.The developer can thus check the software conformance prior to shipping it to the test sitethereby ensuring successful testing at the first execution and avoiding costly repetitions of the process.The importance of DTM certification is also emphasised by the NAMURAK2.6 workgroup on fieldbus. In its recommendation paper NE105NAMUR demands the certification of all DTMs.Test tool Meanwhilethe FDT Group has now decided to establish the test and certification procedure for frame applications.The development of a frame test tool – frameINSPECTOR – has started and is expected to be completed this summer. This test toolsimilar to dtmINSPECTORwill check the FDT frames for conformance against FDT Specification. As with dtmINSPECTORframeINSPECTOR will be based on test scripts defined by the FDT Group. The development and maintenance of frameINSPECTOR will be done by M&M Software which is already providing the official DTM certification tool dtmINSPECTOR. v"

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