By Steven Redcay, Product Specialist I/O Systems, Phoenix Contact
FIELDBUS BASED I/O systems are continuing to evolve in response to the accelerating trend toward modular manufacturing techniques. New form factors have been introduced that provide the right balance of configuration flexibility and installed costs. This White Paper will review how to evaluate the different I/O form factors in light of the modular manufacturing driven requirements for main control panels, distributed panels and enclosure-less control.
Industrial Ethernet applications are rapidly expanding to include direct I/O connections. However, many do not realize the differences between Ethernet and Fieldbus based I/O systems. The increasing number of distributed I/O options available today is steadily increasing to meet industry’s changing needs. Ethernet in industrial applications are growing rapidly. As Ethernet expands into high speed direct I/O control, the performance of the network infrastructure and I/O devices has been increased. This White Paper describes some of the benefits and application factors of this new technology.