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n this era of digitally based process automation systems, the term interoperability has become well known. End-users have come to understand this term as the means through which a given host system can communicate to a wide variety of field devices supplied by different vendors. The technology that is employed to affect this outcome was known as Device Description Language (DDL) technology. It is a text-based language for describing the digital communication characteristics of intelligent field instrumentation and equipment parameters device status, diagnostic data, and configuration details in an operating system (OS) and human machine interface (HMI) neutral environment.
Initially developed in 1992, DDL based-technologies continue to evolve. Today DDL technologies form the engineering and operating foundation on which all major digital fieldbus protocols construct parametric and device descriptions.
This informative White Paper by Martin Zielinski of Emerson Process Management maintains that EDDL now is being enhanced to extend the concept of interoperability to the HMI and diagnostic data.