#2  Contents

#3  Industry News: AIMPLAS | IFR

#4  Industry News: SICK, Endress+Hauser | ABB

#5  Industry News: Packaging Competence Center | QMicro | COG

#6  Industrial Application: Electromagnetic 'Fence' Protects Fish Farm from Salmon Lice

#7  Industrial Application: Uk’s First Hydrogen Kiln Test Rig Helps Manufacturers Make a Sustainable Switch

#8  Industrial Application: Innovative and Secure Authentication and Multifactor Integration in Hazardous Areas

#9  Automation & Communication: Scale up for Private 5G Infrastructure

#10  Pumps & Valves: Actuator Retrofit Increases Plant Sustainability

#11  Pumps & Valves: Control Air | Emerson | Schubert & Salzer

#12  Industrial Products: Keco | Hilscher | Resolve Optics

#13  Measurement And Instrumentation: Vaisala | JUMO

#14  Index

#15  TIMGlobal Contacts

AIMPLAS Develops Demonstrator for the Digital Passport for Plastic Products

AIM­PLAS, the Plastics Tech­no­logy Centre based in Spain, has de­veloped an in­nov­at­ive di­git­al to­tem that sim­u­lates the di­git­al pass­port for plastic products, which will be man­dat­ory for mar­ket­ing products in the European Uni­on. Com­pan­ies should start im­ple­ment­ing it from 2025 to ad­apt to its likely entry in­to force the fol­low­ing year, al­though the ex­act date is not yet known. This tool provides con­sumers with es­sen­tial in­form­a­tion about the trace­ab­il­ity, ma­ter­i­als, re­cyc­ling, and car­bon foot­print of the products they pur­chase. Ad­di­tion­ally, this solu­tion de­veloped by AIM­PLAS of­fi­cially demon­strates that plastic products com­ply with all European reg­u­la­tions.

As an ex­ample of what this di­git­al pass­port will en­tail, the to­tem in­cludes ex­amples of su­per­mar­ket ice cream pack­aging, re­usable cos­met­ic pack­aging, a re­cycled plastic pen­cil hold­er and a toy house, which, in ad­di­tion to be­ing made with at least 90% re­cycled plastic, aims to edu­cate about sus­tain­able habits and re­spect for nature.

Pack­aging and toys are framed with­in the pri­or­it­ies defined by the European Com­mis­sion's Joint Re­search Centre for the Sus­tain­able Products Eco­design Reg­u­la­tion.

The to­tem, de­signed as an in­ter­act­ive screen with code and la­bel read­ers, al­lows users to visu­ally and in­tu­it­ively ex­plore the in­form­a­tion that these products could present in their fu­ture di­git­al pass­ports. It in­teg­rates de­tailed data about the product's life cycle, from its ori­gin and man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess to its ma­ter­i­al com­pon­ents and re­cyc­ling op­tions at the end of its use­ful life, as well as its im­pact on the car­bon foot­print. With this demon­strat­or, AIM­PLAS aims to raise aware­ness among the in­dustry and con­sumers about the im­port­ance of hav­ing veri­fied and ac­cess­ible in­form­a­tion that pro­motes more re­spons­ible and cir­cu­lar con­sump­tion.

Reg­u­la­tion for end products and in­ter­me­di­ates

The products iden­ti­fied by the European Com­mis­sion as key to be­ing in­cluded in the Sus­tain­able Products Eco­design Reg­u­la­tion (which en­com­passes the di­git­al pass­port) are el­ev­en fi­nal products (tex­tiles and foot­wear, fur­niture, tyres, bed mat­tresses, de­ter­gents, paints and var­nishes, lub­ric­ants, cos­met­ics, toys, fish­ing gear, ab­sorb­ent hy­giene products), and sev­en in­ter­me­di­ate products (iron and steel, ba­sic chem­ic­als, non-fer­rous met­al products oth­er than alu­mini­um, alu­mini­um, plastic and poly­mers, pulp and pa­per, glass). Ad­di­tion­ally, three ho­ri­zont­al re­quire­ments will be con­sidered (dur­ab­il­ity, re­cyc­lab­il­ity, re­cycled con­tent).

The de­vel­op­ment of this demon­strat­or for the fu­ture di­git­al product pass­port has been made pos­sible thanks to the sup­port of the Valen­cian In­sti­tute of Busi­ness Com­pet­it­ive­ness and In­nov­a­tion (IVACE+i) with funds from the Gen­er­al­it­at Valen­ciana for the de­vel­op­ment of in­de­pend­ent R&D activ­it­ies by tech­no­logy centres. It is framed with­in the Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Line pro­moted by AIM­PLAS and rep­res­ents a step to­wards trans­par­ency and sus­tain­ab­il­ity in the plastics in­dustry.

ITC Pack­aging and Famosa have col­lab­or­ated in this de­vel­op­ment by provid­ing rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion from the tech­nic­al sheets of the ice cream pack­aging and the toy. Both com­pan­ies are work­ing with AIM­PLAS on the OAS­IS project, fun­ded by IVACE+i with­in the aid pro­gram aimed at tech­no­logy centres in the Valen­cian Com­munity for non-eco­nom­ic R&D projects car­ried out in col­lab­or­a­tion with com­pan­ies for the 2024 fisc­al year, fun­ded by the European Re­gion­al De­vel­op­ment Fund (ERDF) of the European Uni­on un­der the 2021-2027 Op­er­a­tion­al Pro­gram.
 

Global Robotics Trends 2025

The glob­al mar­ket value of in­dus­tri­al ro­bot in­stall­a­tions has reached an all-time high of US$ 16.5 bil­lion. Fu­ture de­mand will be driv­en by a num­ber of tech­no­lo­gic­al in­nov­a­tions, mar­ket forces and new fields of busi­ness. The In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Ro­bot­ics re­ports on the top 5 trends for the ro­bot­ics in­dustry for 2025.

Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence – Phys­ic­al, Ana­lyt­ic­al, Gen­er­at­ive

The trend to­wards ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in ro­bot­ics is grow­ing. By lever­aging di­verse AI tech­no­lo­gies, ro­bot­ics can per­form a wide range of tasks more ef­fi­ciently:
Ana­lyt­ic­al AI en­ables ro­bots to pro­cess and ana­lyze large amounts of data col­lec­ted by their sensors. This helps to man­age vari­ab­il­ity and un­pre­dict­ab­il­ity in the ex­tern­al en­vir­on­ment, in high mix/low-volume’ pro­duc­tion as well as in pub­lic en­vir­on­ments. Ro­bots equipped with vis­ion sys­tems, for ex­ample, ana­lyze past tasks to identi­fy pat­terns and op­tim­ize their op­er­a­tions for great­er ac­cur­acy and speed.

Ro­bot and chip man­u­fac­tur­ers re­cently are in­vest­ing in the de­vel­op­ment of ded­ic­ated hard­ware and soft­ware that sim­u­late real-world en­vir­on­ments. This so-called Phys­ic­al AI al­lows ro­bots to train them­selves in vir­tu­al en­vir­on­ments and op­er­ate by ex­per­i­ence, rather than pro­gram­ming.

These Gen­er­at­ive AI projects aim to cre­ate a “Chat­G­PT mo­ment” for Phys­ic­al AI. This AI-driv­en ro­bot­ics sim­u­la­tion tech­no­logy will ad­vance in tra­di­tion­al in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments as well as in ser­vice ro­bot­ics ap­plic­a­tions.

Hu­manoids

Ro­bots in the shape of hu­man bod­ies have re­ceived a lot of me­dia at­ten­tion. The vis­ion: ro­bots will be­come gen­er­al-pur­pose tools that can load a dish­wash­er on their own and work on an as­sembly line else­where. Start-ups are work­ing on these hu­manoid gen­er­al-pur­pose ro­bots.

Yet, in­dus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ers are fo­cus­ing on hu­manoids per­form­ing single-pur­pose tasks only. Most of these projects are be­ing car­ried out in the auto­mot­ive in­dustry, which has played a key role in pi­on­eer­ing ro­bot ap­plic­a­tions throughout the his­tory of in­dus­tri­al ro­bot­ics, as well as in the ware­hous­ing sec­tor. From today's per­spect­ive, however, it re­mains to be seen wheth­er hu­manoid ro­bots can rep­res­ent an eco­nom­ic­ally vi­able and scal­able busi­ness case for in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions, es­pe­cially when com­pared to ex­ist­ing solu­tions. Nev­er­the­less, there are many ap­plic­a­tions that could in­her­ently be­ne­fit from the hu­manoid form and there­fore of­fer mar­ket po­ten­tial for ro­bot­ics e.g. in lo­gist­ics and ware­hous­ing.

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity – En­ergy Ef­fi­ciency

Com­pli­ance with the UN's en­vir­on­ment­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity goals and cor­res­pond­ing reg­u­la­tions around the world is be­com­ing an im­port­ant re­quire­ment for in­clu­sion on sup­pli­er whitel­ists. Ro­bots play a key role in help­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers achieve these goals.

In gen­er­al, their abil­ity to per­form tasks with high pre­ci­sion re­duces ma­ter­i­al waste and im­proves the out­put-in­put ra­tio of a man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess. These auto­mated sys­tems en­sure con­sist­ent qual­ity which is es­sen­tial for products de­signed to have long lifespans and min­im­al main­ten­ance. In the pro­duc­tion of green en­ergy tech­no­lo­gies such as sol­ar pan­els, bat­ter­ies for elec­tric cars or re­cyc­ling equip­ment, ro­bots are crit­ic­al to cost-ef­fect­ive pro­duc­tion. They en­able man­u­fac­tur­ers to rap­idly scale up pro­duc­tion to meet grow­ing de­mand without com­prom­ising qual­ity or sus­tain­ab­il­ity.

At the same time, ro­bot tech­no­logy is be­ing im­proved to make the ro­bots them­selves more en­ergy-ef­fi­cient. For ex­ample, the light­weight con­struc­tion of mov­ing ro­bot com­pon­ents re­duces their en­ergy con­sump­tion. Dif­fer­ent levels of sleep mode put the hard­ware in an en­ergy sav­ing park­ing po­s­i­tion. Ad­vances in grip­per tech­no­logy use bion­ics to achieve high grip strength with al­most no en­ergy con­sump­tion.

Ro­bots - New Fields of Busi­ness

The gen­er­al man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dustry still has a lot of po­ten­tial for ro­bot­ic auto­ma­tion. Most man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pan­ies are small and me­di­um-sized en­ter­prises (SMEs). The ad­op­tion of in­dus­tri­al ro­bots by SMEs is still hampered by high ini­tial in­vest­ment and total cost of own­er­ship. Ro­bot-as-a-Ser­vice (RaaS) busi­ness mod­els al­low en­ter­prises to be­ne­fit from ro­bot­ic auto­ma­tion with no fixed cap­it­al in­volved. RaaS pro­viders spe­cial­iz­ing in spe­cif­ic in­dus­tries or ap­plic­a­tions can of­fer soph­ist­ic­ated solu­tions quickly. In ad­di­tion, low-cost ro­bot­ics of­fers solu­tions for po­ten­tial cus­tom­ers that find a high-per­form­ance ro­bot to be over­sized for their needs. Many ap­plic­a­tions have low re­quire­ments in terms of pre­ci­sion, pay­load, and ser­vice life. Low-cost ro­bot­ics ad­dresses this new “good enough” seg­ment.

In­ter­est­ing new cus­tom­er seg­ments bey­ond man­u­fac­tur­ing in­clude con­struc­tion, labor­at­ory auto­ma­tion and ware­hous­ing. De­mand across all in­dus­tries is be­ing driv­en by the fact that re­cent crises have led to polit­ic­al aware­ness of do­mest­ic pro­duc­tion ca­pa­city in stra­tegic­ally im­port­ant branches. Auto­ma­tion al­lows man­u­fac­tur­ers to nearshore pro­duc­tion without sac­ri­fi­cing cost ef­fi­ciency.

Ro­bots Ad­dress­ing La­bour Short­age

The glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor con­tin­ues to suf­fer from la­bour short­ages ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al La­bour Or­gan­isa­tion (ILO). One of the main drivers is demo­graph­ic change, which is already bur­den­ing labor mar­kets in lead­ing eco­nom­ies such as the United States, Ja­pan, China, the Re­pub­lic of Korea, or Ger­many. Al­though the im­pact var­ies from coun­try to coun­try, the cu­mu­lat­ive ef­fect on the sup­ply chain is a con­cern al­most every­where.

The use of ro­bot­ics sig­ni­fic­antly re­duces the im­pact of la­bour short­ages in man­u­fac­tur­ing. By auto­mat­ing dirty, dull, dan­ger­ous or del­ic­ate tasks, hu­man work­ers can fo­cus on more in­ter­est­ing and high­er-value tasks. Ro­bots per­form te­di­ous tasks such as visu­al qual­ity in­spec­tion, haz­ard­ous paint­ing or heavy lift­ing. Tech­no­lo­gic­al in­nov­a­tions in ro­bot­ics such as ease of use, col­lab­or­at­ive ro­bots or mo­bile ma­nip­u­lat­ors help to fill gaps when and where needed.

Strategic Gas Measurement Partnership for Process Automation Launched

As a res­ult of the stra­tegic part­ner­ship, around 800 sales and ser­vice em­ploy­ees from SICK trans­fer to En­dress+Haus­er across 42 coun­tries. The col­lab­or­a­tion in pro­cess auto­ma­tion will al­low cus­tom­ers to ac­cess a broad­er range of products from a single source and be­ne­fit from en­hanced ex­pert­ise in gas meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy. With its glob­al sales net­work, En­dress+Haus­er will ac­cess new cus­tom­ers, reach ad­di­tion­al in­dus­tries and tap in­to fur­ther ap­plic­a­tion areas.

Joint ven­ture for de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing

The pro­duc­tion and fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the gas ana­lyz­ers and flow­met­ers were brought to­geth­er un­der the um­brella of En­dress+Haus­er SICK GmbH+Co. KG. SICK and En­dress+Haus­er will each hold 50 per­cent of the joint ven­ture as of 1 March 2025. The com­pany em­ploys around 730 people at sev­er­al Ger­man sites and will col­lab­or­ate closely with En­dress+Haus­er’s product cen­ters to drive product in­nov­a­tion and meet evolving mar­ket de­mands.

Seam­less busi­ness trans­ition

Hun­dreds of em­ploy­ees from both com­pan­ies have been pre­par­ing for the smooth trans­ition of the busi­ness in re­cent months. Now the gas meas­ure­ment sales and ser­vice teams at En­dress+Haus­er are ready to provide sup­port. Since 1 Janu­ary 2025, En­dress+Haus­er has been ex­clus­ively mar­ket­ing SICK’s gas ana­lys­is and flow meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy world­wide. In China, the trans­ition will not take place un­til 1 March 2025 for tech­nic­al reas­ons. In Türkiye and Saudi Ar­a­bia, sales and ser­vice will be trans­ferred to En­dress+Haus­er in the first quarter.

Dr Peter Seld­ers, CEO of the En­dress+Haus­er Group and Dr Mats Gökstorp, chair­man of the ex­ec­ut­ive board of SICK AG ex­pressed their grat­it­ude to em­ploy­ees on both sides who con­trib­uted to es­tab­lish this part­ner­ship. “Above all, we thank all the em­ploy­ees who have made the pro­cess auto­ma­tion busi­ness strong with their ex­pert­ise and com­mit­ment and will con­tin­ue this suc­cess story with the stra­tegic part­ner­ship,” said Mats Gökstorp. Peter Seld­ers ad­ded: “We look for­ward to work­ing with the people join­ing us and the joint ven­ture to build something new and make this part­ner­ship a suc­cess.” 
 

Quality Improvement for Emission Monitoring Data

ABB’s CEM-DAS is the first data ac­quis­i­tion and hand­ling sys­tem (DAHS) on the mar­ket to suc­cess­fully pass test­ing in line with EN 17255, the first in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ard for DAHS in emis­sions mon­it­or­ing. With the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the tests, ABB be­comes the first com­pany to of­fer a com­plete pack­age of con­tinu­ous gas ana­lys­is and DAHS sys­tems fully com­pli­ant with in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards.

DAHS are com­puter-based sys­tems that col­lect and pro­cess in­form­a­tion on air pol­lut­ants meas­ured by con­tinu­ous emis­sions mon­it­or­ing sys­tems (CEMS). The meas­ure­ments are pro­cessed to pro­duce re­ports demon­strat­ing com­pli­ance with reg­u­lat­ory emis­sions lim­its. 

Em­power­ing in­ter­na­tion­al data com­parib­il­ity

The new stand­ard al­lows plant op­er­at­ors across in­dus­tries such as power, oil & gas, waste-to-en­ergy, ce­ment and chem­ic­als to choose DAHS that have been as­sessed by an in­de­pend­ent test­ing labor­at­ory and cer­ti­fied by an in­de­pend­ent cer­ti­fic­a­tion body. 

“ABB’s CEM-DAS is a key sys­tem for re­port­ing emis­sions to au­thor­it­ies,” said Jean-René Roy, Glob­al Busi­ness Line Man­ager, ABB Meas­ure­ment & Ana­lyt­ics. “The fact that CEM-DAS is now suc­cess­fully tested ac­cord­ing to the first in­ter­na­tion­al DAHS stand­ard provides plant op­er­at­ors with the same con­fid­ence that they have in ABB’s cer­ti­fied con­tinu­ous emis­sion mon­it­or­ing sys­tems. At a time of in­creas­ing en­vir­on­ment­al aware­ness and tight­en­ing reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ments, CEM-DAS is cru­cial for en­sur­ing en­vir­on­ment­al stew­ard­ship and reg­u­lat­ory com­pli­ance.”

Car­ried out over a peri­od of six months, the tests were con­duc­ted by TÜV Rhein­land En­ergy En­vir­on­ment, GmbH, an ac­cred­ited labor­at­ory that tests, in­spects and cer­ti­fies tech­nic­al sys­tems and fa­cil­it­ies. The tests showed that CEM-DAS’s emis­sions re­port­ing provided re­pro­du­cible res­ults re­gard­less of vendor-spe­cif­ic data pro­cessing meth­ods. It is ex­pec­ted that the EN 17255 stand­ard will im­prove the qual­ity of data ac­quis­i­tion and hand­ling sys­tem re­port­ing glob­ally by provid­ing stand­ard­ized pro­to­cols for data col­lec­tion, val­id­a­tion and re­port­ing. It will also help en­sure con­sist­ency and ac­cur­acy across dif­fer­ent sys­tems and re­gions. 
 

New ‘Packaging Competence Center’ Supports Development of Future-Proof Packaging Solutions

The EU Pack­aging and Pack­aging Waste Reg­u­la­tion (PPWR) aims to make the pack­aging in­dustry more sus­tain­able and to re­duce the neg­at­ive im­pact of pack­aging waste on the en­vir­on­ment. However, it is pos­ing sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenges for man­u­fac­tur­ers due to the ex­tremely tight dead­lines, the vary­ing im­ple­ment­a­tion sched­ules and the lack of de­tailed reg­u­la­tions at the mo­ment. Com­pan­ies need to as­sess as quickly as pos­sible how they will re­spond to the of­ten com­plex re­quire­ments. This can have far-reach­ing im­plic­a­tions for their pack­aging and man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cesses - and re­quires ef­fi­cient, com­pli­ant im­ple­ment­a­tion, which PCC of­fers a wide range of sup­port for.

As Mi­chael Graf, Head of the PCC and a sus­tain­ab­il­ity ex­pert at Schubert, ex­plains: “Man­u­fac­tur­ers are deal­ing with very prac­tic­al con­sid­er­a­tions. What are the im­plic­a­tions of pack­aging a chocol­ate bar in pa­per in­stead of a flowpack in the fu­ture? Or how does an ex­ist­ing car­ton­ing ma­chine run when blanks are res­ized, when they be­have dif­fer­ently in the ma­chine or when they can no longer be glued? These is­sues are sig­ni­fic­ant and re­quire an­swers along the en­tire value chain.”

Com­bined ex­pert­ise 

This is where the Pack­aging Com­pet­ence Centre fits in. The key ad­vant­age of the PCC is that it can of­fer reg­u­lat­ory ad­vice, pack­aging de­vel­op­ment and ma­chine feas­ib­il­ity - all from a single source - thanks to the com­bined ex­pert­ise of the two com­pan­ies. While the ex­perts from bp Con­sult­ants cla­ri­fy the PPWR and ex­plain its im­pact on the re­spect­ive pack­aging port­fo­lio, Schubert eval­u­ates the mach­in­ab­il­ity of new pack­aging solu­tions, thus en­sur­ing the auto­ma­tion that is es­sen­tial for pack­aging pro­cesses. Mar­cel Kiess­ling, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of Ger­hard Schubert GmbH, points out: “As a lead­ing ma­chine man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pany, we are proud to be work­ing with Berndt+Part­ner, an equally lead­ing-edge con­sult­ing group for pack­aging is­sues in Europe. The Pack­aging Com­pet­ence Cen­ter is a col­lab­or­at­ive part­ner­ship that provides tech­nic­al con­sult­ing ser­vices for pack­aging pro­cesses and tech­no­lo­gies – all tar­geted to­wards mak­ing our cus­tom­ers’ pro­duc­tion pro­cesses more ef­fi­cient and sus­tain­able.

Prac­tic­al sup­por

If, for ex­ample, a man­u­fac­turer wants to switch its pack­aging ma­ter­i­als to pa­per or re­cyc­lable mono films, the PCC of­fers a so-called Im­pact Check. Dur­ing this pro­cess, the ex­perts ana­lyse, as part of their eval­u­ation, wheth­er a man­u­fac­turer’s ex­ist­ing pack­aging range meets the reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ments or wheth­er it needs to be im­proved. Once all ques­tions have been cla­ri­fied, man­u­fac­tur­ers can de­vel­op a new pack­aging design, with sup­port avail­able if de­sired from Berndt+Part­ner Creal­ity, a sub­si­di­ary of the Berndt+Part­ner Group that spe­cial­ises in pack­aging design and brand­ing. The PCC al­ways takes auto­mated pack­aging pro­cesses in­to ac­count. 

Prac­tic­al test­ing on the pack­aging ma­chines

Once the mod­i­fied pack­aging concept has been fi­nal­ised, Schubert tests it on its own ma­chines in Crailsheim. The pack­aging ma­chine man­u­fac­turer de­term­ines wheth­er the new ma­ter­i­als and formats can still be pro­cessed ef­fi­ciently and wheth­er they may re­quire tech­no­lo­gic­al ad­just­ments. Mi­chael Graf be­lieves it is vi­tally im­port­ant to take a hol­ist­ic ap­proach: “Sus­tain­ab­il­ity – the ba­sic idea be­hind our Mis­sion Blue Ini­ti­at­ive – has to in­cor­por­ate sys­tems and up­stream steps such as design to en­sure that a solu­tion is con­sist­ently eco­lo­gic­al. Pack­aging made of pa­per or mono film alone is not enough.” Once the con­sult­ing, design and test­ing are com­plete, the PCC con­tin­ues to sup­port man­u­fac­tur­ers. “Reg­u­la­tions change quickly, so man­u­fac­tur­ers will soon have new ques­tions for which they want equally cre­at­ive an­swers – and they will find them at the PCC,” con­cludes Mat­thi­as Giebel, Part­ner at bp Con­sult­ants, a sub­si­di­ary of the Berndt+Part­ner Group. 
 

Gas Analyzer for Use in Composition Control or Custody Transfer Achieves Certification for Accuracy

The Dy­namiQ-X gas ana­lyz­ers were tested by NMi in the Neth­er­lands, a lead­ing no­ti­fied body in Europe for the test­ing and cer­ti­fic­a­tion of meas­ur­ing in­stru­ments with ISO 17025 ap­prov­al. The tests in­cluded eval­u­at­ing met­ro­lo­gic­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics over a wide tem­per­at­ure range and as­sess­ing per­form­ance un­der dy­nam­ic en­vir­on­ment­al con­di­tions, in­clud­ing mech­an­ic­al and elec­tric­al in­flu­ences. Ad­di­tion­ally, the soft­ware and the firm­ware are in­vest­ig­ated for con­trol, data pro­cessing and com­mu­nic­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with the WEL­MEC guide.

Sim­pli­fy­ing ap­provals

The OIML R140/MID ap­prov­al sim­pli­fies the ap­prov­al pro­cess for sys­tems ac­cord­ing to na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al le­gis­la­tion among mem­ber states. It provides re­duced risks, great­er time sav­ings and im­proved cost ef­fi­ciency to sys­tem in­teg­rat­ors.

OIML R140/MID ap­prov­al for Dy­namiQ-X NG2210 and Dy­namiQ-X NG2220 The OIML R140/MID ap­prov­al is val­id for both gas chro­ma­to­graphs, the Dy­namiQ-X NG2210 and the Dy­namiQ-X NG2220. These are com­pact Ex-cer­ti­fied pro­cess gas chro­ma­to­graphs for com­pos­i­tion con­trol and cus­tody trans­fer pur­poses. The NG2210 ver­sion provides nat­ur­al gas C6+ com­pos­i­tion ana­lys­is and cal­or­if­ic value cal­cu­la­tions and the NG2220 per­forms the same ana­lys­is for nat­ur­al gas blen­ded with hy­dro­gen in con­cen­tra­tions of up to 20%.
 

Management Transition at German Seal Specialist COG

The in­de­pend­ent man­u­fac­turer C. Otto Gehr­ck­ens GmbH & Co. KG (COG), one of the lead­ing sup­pli­ers of pre­ci­sion seals in Ger­many, is fa­cing a trans­ition in man­age­ment. Ingo Met­zger, the Tech­nic­al Man­aging Dir­ect­or of the long-es­tab­lished fam­ily busi­ness, will be join­ing the Ad­vis­ory Board at the end of the year after 30 years of act­ive man­age­ment. His new suc­cessor, Dr Jan Cord Beck­er, will jointly lead the busi­ness to­geth­er with Jan Met­zger, who con­tin­ues to head up the com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions of the com­pany.

Dr Jan Cord Beck­er is a mech­an­ic­al en­gin­eer and has more than 20 years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence as a man­aging dir­ect­or in lead­ing po­s­i­tions in in­dus­tri­al com­pan­ies. One fo­cus in his pre­vi­ous role, was the suc­cess­ful op­tim­isa­tion and re­or­gan­isa­tion of an in­ter­na­tion­ally act­ive fam­ily busi­ness in the tool in­dustry. 

Ingo and Jan Met­zger com­men­ted: “With Jan Cord Beck­er, we have gained a proven ex­pert in cor­por­ate de­vel­op­ment who will lead the com­pany with great stra­tegic foresight and will con­tin­ue our suc­cess­ful path of fur­ther growth.” 

C.Otto Gehr­ck­ens looks back on a suc­cess­ful com­pany his­tory of more than 150 years and is still fam­ily-owned and -man­aged. Jan Met­zger rep­res­ents the fifth gen­er­a­tion of fam­ily in the com­pany.
 

Electromagnetic "Fence" Protects Fish Farm from Salmon Lice

Sal­mon is one of the most pop­u­lar ed­ible fish in the world. In the EU alone, the largest mar­ket for sal­mon, over one mil­lion tonnes were con­sumed in 2023. The ma­jor­ity of sal­mon traded world­wide today comes from aquacul­tures where the fish are bred un­der con­trolled con­di­tions. This in­volves the use of large net cages anchored to the seabed, which provide space for up to one mil­lion fish. Around 70 per cent of glob­al sal­mon pro­duc­tion takes place in this way, mainly in the Nor­we­gi­an fjords and off the coast of Chile.
However, this form of in­tens­ive farm­ing provides ideal con­di­tions for the sal­mon louse, a para­site that sig­ni­fic­antly im­pairs the health of the fish. Com­bat­ing this pest and the res­ult­ing dam­age costs sev­er­al hun­dred mil­lion euros each year - up to 10 per cent of total pro­duc­tion ex­pendit­ure.

An elec­tro­mag­net­ic "fence"

In or­der to min­im­ise these fin­an­cial losses, the Nor­we­gi­an com­pany Har­bor AS has de­veloped a ro­bust and now pat­en­ted pre­vent­ive solu­tion against sal­mon lice un­der the name Har­bor Fence. Veri­fic­a­tion and pi­lot tests were car­ried out in large com­mer­cial fa­cil­it­ies between 2015 and 2019. Har­bor has tested a suc­cess­ful tech­nic­al and mech­an­ic­al veri­fic­a­tion over two gen­er­a­tions of sal­mon in com­mer­cial pi­lot plants, which was com­pleted in spring 2020. 

Re­search has shown that lice lar­vae lose their abil­ity to at­tach to sal­mon when ex­posed to small elec­tro­mag­net­ic fields. Har­bor Fence util­ises this ef­fect through an en­clos­ing elec­tro­mag­net­ic field that is stretched around the cage. The field takes the form of an open fence and neut­ral­ises the lice lar­vae on their way in­to the cage. Har­bor Fence is now in com­mer­cial op­er­a­tion and sup­plies sev­er­al cus­tom­ers along the en­tire Nor­we­gi­an coast. In­stall­a­tion and ser­vice are car­ried out by our own teams. 

In ad­di­tion, a good flow of wa­ter helps to neut­ral­ise the lice lar­vae pro­duced in the cage when they emerge from the har­bour fence sys­tem. This helps to re­duce the in­fec­tion of neigh­bour­ing cages, oth­er sites and wild sal­mon. Har­bor Fence has a loc­al­ised ef­fect and does not harm the fish with­in the aquacul­ture.

LAPP sup­plies cables for use in the sea

Har­bor AS en­lis­ted the ex­pert­ise of LAPP Nor­way to de­vel­op this solu­tion. To­geth­er with LAPP Muller and the LAPP En­gin­eer­ing & Ad­vanced Tech­no­logy de­part­ment, the Nor­we­gi­an spe­cial­ists de­veloped a spe­cial elec­trode cable. This was used to con­struct a kind of "fence" of thin elec­trodes that are at­tached around the out­side of the en­tire net pen. The sys­tem poses no risk to the health of the sal­mon, partly due to the low voltage and the fact that it is at­tached to the out­side of the net pen.

The elec­trode spe­cially de­veloped by LAPP is a semi-con­duct­ive power cable that con­ducts elec­tri­city and forms an elec­tro­mag­net­ic field or bar­ri­er. By hanging the elec­trodes in a row one be­hind the oth­er, they form an elec­tro­mag­net­ic open fence and an open-air pro­tec­tion that acts as an ex­tern­al fuse. "The chal­lenge was to design the cables in such a way that they could with­stand sea­wa­ter without sig­ni­fic­antly los­ing their ef­fect­ive­ness dur­ing their in­ten­ded ser­vice life," says Lars Nilsen, Product Man­ager at LAPP Nor­way. LAPP Nor­way has already sup­plied more than 130 kilo­metres of elec­trodes for such sal­mon fences.

Real-time mon­it­or­ing

The elec­trodes, which hang in the sea at a dis­tance of 12 - 17 cen­ti­metres out­side the net, are con­nec­ted to a power / con­trol cab­in­et. This con­trols the fre­quency and length of the pulses that are sent via the elec­trodes. The con­trol cab­in­et con­tinu­ously trans­mits real-time data on the state of the sea as a basis for op­tim­isa­tion, mon­it­or­ing and con­trol. Nor­mal net pens today are equipped with two auto­ma­tion and con­trol boxes. A Har­bour Fence in­stall­a­tion has an an­nu­al power con­sump­tion of 9,000 kWh. The stand­ard depth for a Har­bour Fence sys­tem in­stall­a­tion is 10 metres.

Har­bor Fence is just as suit­able for plastic cages as it is for steel cages. The com­pany con­cludes ser­vice con­tracts with its cus­tom­ers and en­sures that the fence func­tions prop­erly. Har­bor also takes care of re­turns and the re­pair or re­place­ment of the sys­tem if ne­ces­sary. In ad­di­tion, a re­mote mon­it­or­ing solu­tion can provide real-time hy­dro­graph­ic data such as sa­lin­ity, tem­per­at­ure and cur­rent ve­lo­city. This data can be used to op­tim­ise the cur­rent pulse and cur­rent con­sump­tion in the fence. The sys­tems are con­stantly be­ing fur­ther de­veloped, as are the elec­trode ma­ter­i­als used.

High de­mand around the world

Chris­ti­an Fritz­land is project man­ager at Har­bor. He is ex­per­i­en­cing high de­mand for Har­bor Fence: "We have also re­ceived in­ter­na­tion­al en­quir­ies from Canada, Chile and Scot­land. We are con­tinu­ously work­ing on product de­vel­op­ment and are pur­su­ing sev­er­al in­ter­est­ing av­en­ues. Some of these in­volve easi­er as­sembly and dis­as­sembly as well as re­mote mon­it­or­ing and con­trol of the power cab­in­ets." Such a sys­tem could also provide early warn­ing of oth­er un­desir­able events, such as sud­den foul­ing or in­creas­ing al­gae growth. Fritz­land adds: "If the lice still get in­to the cages, com­ple­ment­ary solu­tions such as clean­er fish and lasers can work well with the elec­tric fence. To­geth­er with clean­er fish or lasers, the sys­tem is a very im­port­ant meas­ure against lice that is not only en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly, but also cost-ef­fect­ive."
 

UK’s first hydrogen kiln test rig helps manufacturers make a sustainable switch

De­veloped by the man­u­fac­turer, the UK’s first in-house hy­dro­gen test kiln is used primar­ily in the pro­duc­tion pro­cess of ceram­ics, pot­tery and bricks. Its key fea­ture is that it can scale its op­er­a­tion with a fuel mix of 20% hy­dro­gen or more. The test kiln has been de­veloped to sup­port busi­nesses mak­ing the trans­ition to the in­creased use of hy­dro­gen.
Cur­rently in the UK, kilns are primar­ily fired with nat­ur­al gas, but the gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing plans to blend the sup­ply of gas in the net­work with 20% hy­dro­gen. For brick and ceram­ic man­u­fac­tur­ing, the type and con­cen­tra­tion of gas im­pacts the cur­ing pro­cess. The new kiln design is en­abling man­u­fac­tur­ers to test their pro­duc­tion pro­cesses with a hy­dro­gen blend and mon­it­or the ef­fects on the qual­ity of their products, in ad­vance of a gov­ern­ment switch-over.

The new test kiln can cur­rently con­trol the gas mix up to around 40% hy­dro­gen, though there is a plan for the po­ten­tial use of 100% con­cen­tra­tion. This scalab­il­ity is en­abling brick and ceram­ic pro­du­cers to con­firm op­er­a­tion­al per­form­ance be­fore in­vest­ing in hy­dro­gen-fuelled, in­dus­tri­al-scale pro­duc­tion lines.

Con­trolling the blend

A key chal­lenge in the de­vel­op­ment of the new kiln has been the in­teg­ra­tion and con­trol of the gas blend. High ac­cur­acy is re­quired to en­sure ex­act­ing reg­u­la­tion of the hy­dro­gen con­cen­tra­tion, to rep­lic­ate large-scale, op­er­a­tion­al con­di­tions. Con­trol re­li­ab­il­ity also has to be re­peat­able for man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cesses last­ing up to 24 hours or more.
A pro­gram­mable lo­gic con­trol­ler (PLC) man­ages the kiln’s over­all gas blend pro­cess, in­clud­ing tem­per­at­ure and pres­sure sensors. To design the con­trol sys­tem spe­cific­ally for the high ac­cur­acy-de­pend­ent hy­dro­gen reg­u­la­tion, the man­u­fac­turer partnered with flow con­trol spe­cial­ist Bürkert. In or­der to en­sure pre­cise mod­u­la­tion, Bürkert in­teg­rated a Type 8742 mass flow con­trol­ler (MFC) to man­age the single chan­nel flow of hy­dro­gen.

The kiln re­quires a hy­dro­gen flow rate of 22 m³ per hour at 3 bar, and the MFC of­fers a con­trol span of a 50:1 turndown, en­abling it to re­duce flow down to 1/50th of the total level as re­quired. Cru­cially, the MFC en­sures a meas­ur­ing ac­cur­acy de­vi­ation as low as ±0.3%, and re­peat­ab­il­ity down to just ±0.1%. This pre­ci­sion is en­abling cus­tom­ers to test ex­act­ing hy­dro­gen con­cen­tra­tions to op­tim­ise their pro­cesses.

Plug-and-play con­nectiv­ity

The MFC con­nects to the kiln’s PLC mas­ter con­trol­ler via a Bürkert ME43 gate­way. The com­mu­nic­a­tions gate­way con­verts the MFC’s CAN­open sig­nal to the Profinet pro­tocol, en­abling seam­less com­mu­nic­a­tion between the devices. Ease of set up and re­li­able com­mu­nic­a­tions in in­teg­ra­tion of the hy­dro­gen flow con­trol­ler to the kiln’s main auto­ma­tion con­trol­ler was vi­tal.

As the hy­dro­gen test kiln is reg­u­larly used with dif­fer­ent brick and ceram­ic man­u­fac­tur­ers, they each have their own con­trol para­met­ers. The ME43 en­ables plug-and-play con­nectiv­ity to the mas­ter con­trol­ler, provid­ing the abil­ity to make fast changes.

Since the Bürkert com­mu­nic­a­tions gate­way con­verts the sig­nal to the de­sired com­mu­nic­a­tions pro­tocol, this re­moves the cost of ad­di­tion­al li­cences re­quired to ex­tend in­teg­ra­tion to the PLC us­ing same-vendor devices. This is par­tic­u­larly ad­vant­age­ous to en­able scal­ing up of the tech­no­logy in the fu­ture for use on in­dus­tri­al-sized kilns and fur­naces. For full man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­duc­tion ap­plic­a­tions, the Bürkert com­mu­nic­a­tions gate­way also en­ables re­mote con­nectiv­ity and man­age­ment of the pro­duc­tion pro­cess.

En­abling hy­dro­gen trans­ition

The brick and ceram­ics man­u­fac­tur­ers who have so far tested hy­dro­gen use at 20% con­cen­tra­tion have re­por­ted pos­it­ive res­ults, with no sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ences to the out­come com­pared to us­ing 100% nat­ur­al gas. The next stage is the wide­spread test­ing of con­cen­tra­tions up to 40% and bey­ond.

Eco­nom­ic­ally, in­dustry cur­rently re­mains re­li­ant on nat­ur­al gas, but pro­lif­er­a­tion of hy­dro­gen could even­tu­ally see price of this gas fall to par­ity, or even lower, than cur­rent gas prices. Im­port­antly, ex­pan­ded use of hy­dro­gen could cre­ate a more sus­tain­able out­come, par­tic­u­larly if green hy­dro­gen, cre­ated from re­new­able sources, is in­creas­ingly used.
 

Innovative and Secure Authentication and Multifactor Integration in Hazardous Areas

The new VisuN­et GXP is equipped with an RFID read­er fully in­teg­rated in­to the dis­play unit and sup­ports com­mon RFID-based ac­cess cards such as MI­FARE® and LE­GIC®. The au­then­tic­a­tion pro­cess can there­fore be handled via the com­pany ID card, for ex­ample. This not only op­tim­izes the lo­gin pro­cess, but also im­proves se­cur­ity by clearly de­fin­ing and auto­mat­ic­ally man­aging ac­cess rights. Com­pan­ies that already use RFID card sys­tems can con­tin­ue to use their ex­ist­ing ac­cess cards without hav­ing to in­tro­duce ad­di­tion­al hard­ware or new me­dia.

Due to the in­teg­rated RFID read­er, the device can be in­teg­rated in­to mod­ern se­cur­ity con­cepts such as multi-factor au­then­tic­a­tion, in which sev­er­al iden­ti­fic­a­tion fea­tures are com­bined. Com­pan­ies that need to com­ply with the highest se­cur­ity stand­ards can sup­ple­ment the VisuN­et GXP with ad­di­tion­al iden­ti­fic­a­tion meth­ods such as pass­word entry or bio­met­ric re­cog­ni­tion. This func­tion­al­ity is par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant in in­dus­tries with strict se­cur­ity re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing the phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dustry, chem­ic­al com­pan­ies and the oil and gas sec­tor, where reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ments de­mand unique iden­ti­fic­a­tion of op­er­at­ors.

The VisuN­et GXP also of­fers five ca­pa­cit­ive front but­tons that en­able quick and easy op­er­a­tion. The but­tons are con­fig­ur­able and al­low fre­quently used func­tions to be ex­ecuted dir­ectly. For ex­ample, one but­ton can be as­signed as a home but­ton to quickly re­turn to the stand­ard view. An­oth­er func­tion al­lows the dis­play bright­ness to be ad­jus­ted, which en­sures op­tim­um read­ab­il­ity, es­pe­cially in chan­ging light con­di­tions. To avoid un­in­ten­tion­al in­puts, the touch screen can be de­ac­tiv­ated via one of the front but­tons, for ex­ample dur­ing clean­ing. The device also has a power but­ton that can be flex­ibly con­figured or de­ac­tiv­ated as re­quired to pre­vent ac­ci­dent­al switch-off dur­ing op­er­a­tion.

The com­bin­a­tion of ro­bust RFID tech­no­logy, ca­pa­cit­ive front but­tons for in­tu­it­ive op­er­a­tion, and flex­ible sys­tem in­teg­ra­tion makes the VisuN­et GXP a fu­ture-ready solu­tion for in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments with in­creased se­cur­ity re­quire­ments. Plant op­er­at­ors not only be­ne­fit from faster and more con­veni­ent lo­gon, but can also ad­apt their ac­cess con­cepts to new se­cur­ity stand­ards in the long term without hav­ing to com­pletely re­place ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture. 

Mod­u­lar As­sembly for In­vest­ment Se­cur­ity and Min­im­al Down­time

The mod­u­larly de­signed VisuN­et GXP is di­vided in­to three in­ter­change­able units, each of which is in­de­pend­ently ap­proved for use in haz­ard­ous areas: The dis­play unit, the com­put­ing unit, and the power sup­ply. This concept al­lows in­di­vidu­al mod­ules to be re­placed dir­ectly in Zone 1/21 without hav­ing to re­move the en­tire op­er­at­or work­sta­tion. Any­one plan­ning an up­grade can there­fore in­teg­rate the latest hard­ware in­to the ex­ist­ing HMI sys­tem and ex­tend the life­time of the VisuN­et GXP in the long term. If a com­pon­ent fails, the down­time is sig­ni­fic­antly re­duced be­cause the en­tire device does not have to be dis­con­nec­ted from the pro­cess. This flex­ib­il­ity means a high level of in­vest­ment se­cur­ity for op­er­at­ors, as they can make hard­ware changes step by step and there­fore al­ways re­main up to date. 

Soft­ware Di­versity for Dif­fer­ent In­fra­struc­tures

The VisuN­et GXP is not only ver­sat­ile on the hard­ware side, but also on the soft­ware side. In ad­di­tion to Pep­perl+Fuchs' own VisuN­et RM Shell 6, which is based on Win­dows 10 IoT En­ter­prise LTSC 2021, the device also sup­ports IG­EL OS 11 and IG­EL OS 12 based on Linux. The devices are also Thin­Man­ager Ready. This open­ness means that the VisuN­et GXP can be seam­lessly in­teg­rated in­to ex­ist­ing IT struc­tures. Plant plan­ners and en­gin­eers pur­su­ing mod­ern auto­ma­tion ap­proaches be­ne­fit from a sus­tain­able solu­tion that can be ef­fi­ciently ad­ap­ted to in­di­vidu­al re­quire­ments due to the mod­u­lar hard­ware ap­proach and broad soft­ware com­pat­ib­il­ity. 

In­teg­ra­tion In­to Com­mon Iden­ti­fic­a­tion and Au­then­tic­a­tion Sys­tems

The RFID read­er built in­to the VisuN­et GXP is based on the RFID20 com­pon­ent from Pep­perl+Fuchs. As a stand-alone com­pon­ent, it is cer­ti­fied for use in ATEX/IECEx Zone 2/22 and Di­vi­sion 2. It can be in­teg­rated in­to stain­less steel hous­ings and used dir­ectly in phar­ma­ceut­ic­al and hy­gien­ic pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments. The RFID20 com­pon­ent is com­pat­ible with lead­ing au­then­tic­a­tion sys­tems such as PM-Lo­gon from Siemens, Lo­gOn­Plus from Obi­on, and the Con­nec­ted Work­er Plat­form from Nymi, en­abling easy in­teg­ra­tion in­to ex­ist­ing safety and iden­ti­fic­a­tion solu­tions.

PM-Lo­gon from Siemens plays a par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant role in SIMAT­IC con­trol sys­tems. This soft­ware fa­cil­it­ates the lo­gon pro­cess by auto­mat­ic­ally as­sign­ing a user iden­tity to an RFID card. As soon as an au­thor­ized per­son holds their card up to the read­er, they can log in to the tar­get sys­tem without hav­ing to enter a pass­word manu­ally. This speeds up the lo­gon pro­cess, min­im­izes op­er­at­ing er­rors, and at the same time meets high se­cur­ity re­quire­ments in pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments.

In ad­di­tion to PM-Lo­gon, the RFID20 com­pon­ent is com­pat­ible with Lo­gOn­Plus from Obi­on, a mod­u­lar cli­ent-serv­er solu­tion that in­teg­rates seam­lessly in­to vari­ous pro­cess con­trol sys­tems. It also sup­ports Nymi's Con­nec­ted Work­er Plat­form, which en­ables bio­met­ric and wear­able au­then­tic­a­tion, fur­ther in­creas­ing se­cur­ity stand­ards in sens­it­ive in­dus­tries such as life sci­ences. 

RFID In­teg­ra­tion and Proven Mod­u­lar­ity in a Ro­bust Solu­tion for Haz­ard­ous Areas

With the com­bin­a­tion of an in­teg­rated RFID read­er, ca­pa­cit­ive front keys for flex­ible op­er­a­tion, and a mod­u­lar hard­ware design, the VisuN­et GXP is a par­tic­u­larly at­tract­ive solu­tion for de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions in Zone 1/21. Plant op­er­at­ors who re­quire a for­ward-look­ing HMI plat­form with full RFID func­tion­al­ity in a haz­ard­ous en­vir­on­ment are provided with an ex­tremely ro­bust, re­li­able, and ex­pand­able sys­tem. The fast, se­cure, and un­com­plic­ated au­then­tic­a­tion via RFID card op­tim­izes pro­cesses by min­im­iz­ing sources of fault and re­du­cing down­times. This rep­res­ents a de­cis­ive eco­nom­ic ad­vant­age for smooth op­er­a­tions. Com­pat­ib­il­ity with au­then­tic­a­tion sys­tems such as PM-Lo­gon, Lo­gOn­Plus, or the Con­nec­ted Work­er Plat­form en­sures smooth in­teg­ra­tion in­to ex­ist­ing IT in­fra­struc­tures. This makes the VisuN­et GXP the op­tim­al choice for plant op­er­at­ors who need fu­ture-ori­ented, flex­ible, and seam­lessly in­teg­rable HMIs for de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ments.

Au­thor: Yan­nik Klein, Pep­perl+Fuchs

Siemens Scales up Private 5G Infrastructure

Siemens an­nounced a sig­ni­fic­ant up­date to its in­dus­tri­al-grade private 5G in­fra­struc­ture solu­tion, that will en­able man­u­fac­tur­ers to cov­er lar­ger in­dus­tri­al areas with en­hanced con­nectiv­ity cap­ab­il­it­ies. The ex­pan­ded solu­tion now sup­ports up to 24 ra­dio units, with each unit cap­able of cov­er­ing ap­prox­im­ately 5,000 m².

The up­dated private 5G in­fra­struc­ture is now avail­able in mul­tiple coun­tries in­clud­ing Ger­many, Sweden, Neth­er­lands, Switzer­land, Den­mark, Aus­tria, and Brazil, and there are plans to ex­pand to ad­di­tion­al coun­tries throughout 2025. When the ini­tial ver­sion of Siemens’ private 5G in­fra­struc­ture was launched in 2023, it was ex­clus­ively avail­able in Ger­many. To com­ple­ment the in­fra­struc­ture ex­pan­sion, Siemens is also in­tro­du­cing the new com­pact Scal­ance MUB852-1, an entry-level 5G router for cab­in­et use with IP20 pro­tec­tion class, part of the Siemens Xcel­er­at­or port­fo­lio. The router matches the Siemens Simat­ic ET200 I/O foot­print and in­teg­rates seam­lessly in­to Siemens’ Totally In­teg­rated Auto­ma­tion (TIA) land­scape.

"Our en­hanced private 5G in­fra­struc­ture solu­tion rep­res­ents an­oth­er mile­stone in con­nec­ted pro­duc­tion," said Axel Lorenz, CEO of Pro­cess Auto­ma­tion at Siemens. 

"By en­abling cov­er­age of lar­ger in­dus­tri­al areas while main­tain­ing the same re­li­able con­nectiv­ity, we're meet­ing the grow­ing de­mands of mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing en­vir­on­ments."

The en­hanced solu­tion comes at a cru­cial time, when re­li­able wire­less con­nectiv­ity in fact­ory en­vir­on­ments is fa­cing in­creas­ing chal­lenges. The tra­di­tion­al un­li­censed Wi-Fi spec­trum of­ten be­comes over­loaded in crowded set­tings, lead­ing to com­mu­nic­a­tion out­ages and po­ten­tial pro­duc­tion shut­downs. Siemens' private 5G in­fra­struc­ture dir­ectly ad­dresses these chal­lenges by provid­ing a ded­ic­ated, net­work solu­tion for mis­sion-crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions. Private 5G net­works also cre­ate the flex­ible com­mu­nic­a­tion in­fra­struc­ture needed to eas­ily in­teg­rate smart sensors and edge devices, en­abling data-driv­en de­cisions on the shop floor through ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence ap­plic­a­tions.

User-friendly design  

Build­ing on these cap­ab­il­it­ies, Siemens has de­veloped this solu­tion spe­cific­ally for in­dus­tri­al use cases and re­quire­ments. The sys­tem fea­tures an in­nov­at­ive, user-friendly ap­proach with a straight­for­ward con­fig­ur­a­tion pro­cess that only re­quires about 20 vari­ables in a single com­pre­hens­ive Web user in­ter­face. A clearly ar­ranged dash­board of­fers a com­pre­hens­ive over­view of the net­work status mak­ing it ac­cess­ible even for non-IT users. While many in­dustry solu­tions re­quire spe­cial­ized ex­pert­ise, Siemens' ap­proach pri­or­it­izes user-friendly op­er­a­tion and simple im­ple­ment­a­tion to sup­port mis­sion- and busi­ness-crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions.

This private 5G in­fra­struc­ture will be ex­tremely valu­able across a vari­ety of in­dus­tri­al sec­tors, in­clud­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, food and bever­age, phar­ma­ceut­ic­als, in­t­ra­lo­gist­ics, heavy in­dus­tries, and min­ing. The sys­tem al­lows com­pan­ies to op­er­ate their net­works in­de­pend­ently without re­ly­ing on third-party pro­viders, which en­sures en­hanced cy­ber­se­cur­ity and data pri­vacy thanks to on-site in­stall­a­tion. Users can flex­ibly modi­fy their net­works to meet chan­ging de­mands and per­form fast troubleshoot­ing when ne­ces­sary.

"The in­dus­tri­al world is mov­ing away from the 'one-size-fits-all' ap­proach to wire­less con­nectiv­ity. With our private in­dus­tri­al 5G in­fra­struc­ture, we're giv­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers the tools to design their di­git­al back­bone ex­actly the way they need to, wheth­er they're run­ning a single pro­duc­tion line or an en­tire smart fact­ory com­plex,” Lorenz said.
 

Actuator Retrofit Increases Plant Sustainability

The com­bined heat and power plant was ori­gin­ally built in 1976 for fossil fuels. To con­tin­ue work­ing re­li­ably in the fu­ture, the plant op­er­ated by Stock­holm Ex­ergi, the Swedish cap­it­al’s en­ergy sup­pli­er, had to be mod­ern­ised. A large-scale ret­ro­fit project was ini­ti­ated that will ex­tend the ser­vice life of the plant by a fur­ther 20 years and help to meet Stock­holm’s grow­ing de­mand for heat­ing and elec­tri­city dur­ing the cold winter months. The boil­er was con­ver­ted so that it can be op­er­ated with re­new­able fuels such as bio-oil.

With­in the scope of this project, AUMA re­ceived the or­der to auto­mate 241 valves. AUMA’s broad port­fo­lio offered the per­fect elec­tric ac­tu­ation solu­tion for each ap­plic­a­tion: SA and SQ ac­tu­at­ors with AC 01.2 ac­tu­at­or con­trols, some­times com­bined with GST and GS gear­boxes or LE lin­ear units, as well as SAR and SARV mod­u­lat­ing ac­tu­at­ors for more strin­gent con­trol re­quire­ments. AUMA ser­vice ex­perts dis­mantled the old devices on site and in­stalled and com­mis­sioned the new devices.

Im­prov­ing ef­fi­ciency and re­li­ab­il­ity

The ac­tu­at­ors are used to con­trol all the pro­cesses in the com­bined heat and power plant, from the fuel sup­ply, feed wa­ter and steam sys­tems to flue gas clean­ing and feed­ing in­to the dis­trict heat­ing net­work. Us­ing AUMA ac­tu­at­ors with in­teg­ral Profinet com­mu­nic­a­tions brought ma­jor ad­vant­ages: high re­li­ab­il­ity thanks to in­teg­rated re­dund­ancy, easy and flex­ible in­teg­ra­tion, and ad­vanced dia­gnost­ic op­tions. Over­all, the AUMA ac­tu­at­ors help to im­prove the ef­fi­ciency, re­li­ab­il­ity and safety of the CHP plant and re­duce op­er­at­ing costs.

The project shows how ret­ro­fit­ting state-of-the-art, high-per­form­ance valve ac­tu­ation tech­no­logy can en­sure ef­fi­cient and sus­tain­able plant op­er­a­tion. As part of AUMA’s glob­al sales and ser­vice net­work, AUMA ex­perts are avail­able world­wide to sup­port plant de­sign­ers and op­er­at­ors with com­pre­hens­ive ser­vices on ret­ro­fit projects of any kind and scale. As in this project, the AUMA ex­perts typ­ic­ally take care of the en­tire project man­age­ment, from a de­tailed ana­lys­is of the re­quire­ments, through se­lec­tion and siz­ing of suit­able AUMA ac­tu­at­ors, to in­stall­a­tion and com­mis­sion­ing on site.

Gas Regulators for Low Emission Applications

Con­tro­lAir is pleased to an­nounce the re­lease of the CG330 and CG340 gas reg­u­lat­ors. This in­nov­at­ive range has been spe­cific­ally de­signed to meet the grow­ing de­mand for low emis­sion solu­tions in in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions us­ing com­pressed gases such as in­ert gases, nat­ur­al gas and oth­er sens­it­ive me­dia. The range of com­pressed gas fil­ter reg­u­lat­ors is de­signed to provide ac­cur­ate pres­sure con­trol with near-zero at­mo­spher­ic leak­age un­der dy­nam­ic or steady-state flow con­di­tions. Ideal for ap­plic­a­tions that must com­ply with strin­gent fu­git­ive emis­sion reg­u­la­tions, these rugged reg­u­lat­ors provide users with ex­cep­tion­al re­li­ab­il­ity, op­er­a­tion­al ef­fi­ciency and en­vir­on­ment­al safety.

Pre­cise reg­u­la­tion

The series en­sures near-zero at­mo­spher­ic leak­age (less than 0.1 scfh (0.05 Nl/min)) for reg­u­lat­ory com­pli­ance. They are avail­able in 1/4" and 1/2" NPT port sizes with out­put pres­sure ranges of 0-30 psig, 0-60 psig and 0-120 psig to meet vari­ous ap­plic­a­tion re­quire­ments. Con­struc­ted of die-cast alu­mini­um al­loy with an irid­ite and baked epoxy fin­ish for long-term per­form­ance in harsh en­vir­on­ments and a wide range of me­dia com­pat­ib­il­ity, the reg­u­lat­ors can handle air, in­ert gas and sweet nat­ur­al gas with­in tem­per­at­ure lim­its of 0°F to 160°F (manu­al drain) or 32°F to 160°F (auto­mat­ic drain).

The CG330/CG340 reg­u­lat­ors are ideal for in­dus­tries such as oil and gas, chem­ic­al pro­cessing and any op­er­a­tion where pre­cise pres­sure con­trol and en­vir­on­ment­al safety are crit­ic­al.
 

Zero-Emission Electric Dump Valves

Emer­son re­cently partnered with Lara­m­ie En­ergy to help the Col­or­ado-based oil and gas pro­du­cer com­ply with state and fed­er­al emis­sions reg­u­la­tions. Us­ing ASCO Zero-Emis­sion Elec­tric Dump Valves, the only all-elec­tric solu­tion for sep­ar­at­ors, scrub­bers and com­pres­sion units, Emer­son helped Lara­m­ie En­ergy achieve com­pli­ance by elim­in­at­ing both ven­ted and fu­git­ive emis­sions from the li­quid dump stage of its sep­ar­a­tion pro­cess.

Con­ven­tion­al dump valves are of­ten ac­tu­ated by well gas, which can leak in­to the at­mo­sphere as ven­ted and fu­git­ive emis­sions. Some states, in­clud­ing Col­or­ado, have emis­sions reg­u­la­tions that in­clude fines for non-com­pli­ance, and the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) has es­tab­lished a waste emis­sions fee for meth­ane emis­sions that ex­ceed cer­tain thresholds.

When fu­git­ive emis­sions are de­tec­ted, the EPA re­quires oil and gas pro­du­cers to re­port their green­house gas data and to con­duct test­ing, sur­veys and re­pairs. Com­pan­ies that fall out of com­pli­ance must pay costly fines and waste sub­sequent down­time to re­store to re­turn to com­pli­ance.

Fast and en­ergy-sav­ing valves

In com­par­is­on, ASCO zero-emis­sion elec­tric dump valves use ul­tra-low-power elec­tric ac­tu­ation, which re­moves the need to vent well gas in up­stream ap­plic­a­tions. And, un­like tra­di­tion­al dump valves, they are fu­git­ive-emis­sions-free by design be­cause they have no valve pack­ing. With pre­cise con­trol, ASCO elec­tric dump valves ac­tu­ate in 50 to 75 mil­li­seconds com­pared to con­ven­tion­al valves that take sev­er­al seconds, thus vir­tu­ally elim­in­at­ing any chance of gas blowby. This helped Lara­m­ie En­ergy bet­ter main­tain the stat­ic pres­sure of their ves­sels which ul­ti­mately led to an in­crease in nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion. The valves also use 1.2 watts (W) of en­ergy com­pared to a con­ven­tion­al elec­tric ret­ro­fit kit that uses 96 W, re­du­cing valve power us­age by 98.75%.

Though ini­tially de­signed for leg­acy well sites, these fully elec­tric dump valves can help oil and gas com­pan­ies achieve com­pli­ance and avoid red tape on both newly drilled pro­duc­tion sites and ex­ist­ing pro­duc­tion sites to meet new stand­ards. The solu­tion provides a cost-ef­fect­ive, main­ten­ance-free al­tern­at­ive to meet com­pli­ance when com­pared to oth­er solu­tions like in­stru­ment air, ni­tro­gen and elec­tric ret­ro­fit kits.

Lara­m­ie En­ergy fo­cuses on de­vel­op­ing un­con­ven­tion­al oil and gas re­serves with­in the Rocky Moun­tains, op­er­at­ing roughly 1,500 wells. The com­pany in­stalled ASCO elec­tric dump valves in newly drilled wells while up­dat­ing its leg­acy wells with the solu­tion. Bey­ond en­sur­ing com­pli­ance, the valves have provided ad­di­tion­al be­ne­fits, in­clud­ing less main­ten­ance and great­er well ef­fi­ciency.
 

Stainless-Steel Flange Valves

The pneu­mat­ic­ally ac­tu­ated stain­less steel (1.4408, 1.4308) flange valves Type 7032 from Schubert & Salzer Con­trol Sys­tems are suit­able for shut­ting off neut­ral and slightly ag­gress­ive li­quids and gases quickly and safely. The sturdy and com­pactly de­signed valves are us­able for high op­er­at­ing pres­sures and are char­ac­ter­ised by par­tic­u­larly high switch­ing per­form­ance, leak-tight­ness and re­li­ab­il­ity.

Their wide us­age range en­com­passes me­dia tem­per­at­ures from -30 °C to 200 °C. The pre­vi­ous nom­in­al size range (DN15-80) has been ex­ten­ded by the new nom­in­al sizes DN100, DN125 and DN150, which are de­signed for a nom­in­al pres­sure of PN16. Their com­pact design cor­res­ponds to the EN 1092-1 flange stand­ard and guar­an­tees simple in­teg­ra­tion in­to com­mon pipeline sys­tems.
 

Optical Process Oxygen Analyzer

During a month-long field test conducted by KECO in collaboration with a leading vapor recovery unit (VRU) manufacturer, KECO's OxyHound process gas analyzer demonstrated superior performance compared to traditional electrochemical analyzers. The test focused on measuring oxygen levels in gas streams. During the test, both the OxyHound and a conventional electrochemical analyser were set up to measure oxygen levels in a gas stream. The data collected was integrated into the VRU company's SCADA system, which took readings every two minutes. The results showed that the OxyHound significantly outperformed the electrochemical analyser in terms of accuracy and reliability. 

The OxyHound uses advanced quench luminescence technology for gas sampling to ensure accurate oxygen measurement. This method uses the decay of light emitted by a specific luminophore over time to accurately determine the partial pressure of oxygen. The analyser tracks changes in light phase and intensity between the excitation light and the fluorescence response. The on-board computer uses this data to calculate oxygen levels in real time.

Long sensor life

A cost analysis between the two technologies revealed that the electrochemical instruments required cell replacement at least twice a year due to exposure to water. The estimated annual replacement cost was approximately $1,000. In contrast, OxyHound's quench luminescence technology is non-consumable, requires no consumables and only occasional sensor recalibration. These factors significantly reduced both cost and labour.

While electrochemical analysers are susceptible to liquid contamination, the OxyHound can operate in environments with contaminants such as H2S, CO2, H2, propylene, methanol and ethanol mixtures. Its insensitivity to various gases makes it ideal for applications in natural gas pipelines, refineries, biogas production, chemical plants, landfills, wastewater treatment, manufacturing, food and beverage, and renewable energy sectors. The analyser is designed for use in Division 2 & Zone 2 hazardous locations. 

SPE Media Switch for PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, and Modbus Networks

Hilscher has introduced a new SPE Media Switch designed to integrate Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) into industrial Ethernet networks. The new SPE Media Switch, based on Hilscher’s multiprotocol-capable netX90 communication controller, provides seamless connectivity for SPE applications with PROFINET, Open Modbus/TCP, and EtherNet/IP networks. This ready-to-use device offers a cost-effective solution for implementing SPE in industrial field environments.

The SPE Media Switch enables seamless IP-based communication from sensors to the cloud without the need for additional, expensive network components. This allows devices to be easily and affordably connected over distances of up to 1.000 meters using the 10BASE-T1L standard, making it ideal for large production facilities or widely distributed applications.

As a member of both the Single Pair Ethernet System Alliance (SPE SA) and the SPE Industrial Partner Network (SPE PN), Hilscher supports both SPE connector standards. The SPE Media Switch is compatible with IEC 63171-2 (SPE SA) and IEC 63171-6 (SPE PN) connectors, giving users the flexibility to choose the option that best meets their needs.

The SPE Media Switch is based on Hilscher’s netX 90 communication controller, offering users several advantages:

  • A multiprotocol communication platform with unified interfaces, drivers, and tools from a single source
  • netX 90 security-ready architecture with integrated security components
  • Energy efficiency with low power consumption and minimal heat generation
  • A development board with netX 90 and SPE PHYs for building custom SPE-enabled field devices 
     

In PROFINET and EtherNet/IP networks, the SPE Media Switch can operate in either transparent or configured modes. In transparent mode, data is simply routed through the SPE Media Switch, which is invisible to the controller. In configured mode, the switch is mapped in the controller and can, for example, be assigned a fixed IP address. For Open Modbus/TCP networks, only transparent mode is available.

Rate limiter ensures reliable data transfer

To ensure stable network performance and reliable data transfer, Hilscher has integrated a rate limiter function into the SPE Media Switch. This feature helps prevent data loss when bandwidth decreases from 100 Mbit Industrial Ethernet to 10 Mbit SPE.  

The unique rate limiter function manages network traffic during high data loads by prioritizing and processing Industrial Ethernet frames based on predefined parameters. Additionally, a flow meter mechanism allocates bandwidth across various types of messages. For example, a minimum of 5 Mbit can be reserved for Industrial Ethernet messages from PROFINET and EtherNet/IP in the SPE network, while up to 3 Mbit is allocated to unicast messages, and a maximum of 1 Mbit for multicast or broadcast messages with lower priority.
 

Compact Lens for High Radiation Areas

The Model 390 is Resolve Optics most compact radiation resistant lens. Measuring just 21 x 14mm – the Model 390 is the perfect non browning lens for small sensor cameras operating in high radiation areas. The 5mm focal length fixed focus lens is designed to maintain high clarity up to a total radiation dose of 100,000,000 rad and is optimized for use with ¼-inch image format radiation resistant CCD cameras. 

Providing true HD quality images, the Model 390 lens offers a wide field of view and is proven in high radiation nuclear applications including monitoring of hot cells, belt lines and close inspection of baffle bolts. 
Rob Watkinson, Resolve Optics sales manager explains “While the Model 390 lens is great for close-up, space limited applications in a high radiation environment it does not compromise on performance. Incorporating specially selected cerium doped glass elements - the Model 390 can capture clear, sharp high-definition images free of the yellow tint inherent in older non browning lenses, with minimum geometric distortion from 400 to 770nm”.
 

Monitoring Solution for Production Environments

Many organizations rely heavily on accurate indoor environment measurements, but traditionally only large corporations have had the resources to build measurement infrastructures with advanced features such as remote monitoring and easy scalability. Vaisala Echo has been designed to provide the superior benefits of an intelligent indoor measurement infrastructure – but as a built-in feature to selected Vaisala measurement products and solutions.

Vaisala is launching a new solution for industrial indoor and process measurements, Vaisala Echo. Echo connects Vaisala measurement devices and monitoring software to create an intelligent measurement infrastructure. In practice, customers will not buy Echo separately, because it is a built-in feature for Echo-compatible Vaisala measurement products. 

“With Echo the days of manually setting up indoor monitoring systems are over. The Echo infrastructure gives you easy, reliable, always-on access to data and alerts from all compatible devices. You pick what you need, based on your measurement, oversight, and reporting needs – and Vaisala guarantees that all instruments talk to the monitoring software, securely, and without glitches,” explains Jarno Mitjonen, Software Product Manager at Vaisala. According to Mitjonen, certain condition-sensitive industries will benefit the most from measurement infrastructures like Echo. These include industrial manufacturing, pharma and laboratories, museums and archives, and indoor and vertical farming. Typically, these sectors will need to measure various parameters like humidity, temperature, CO2, or dew point.

Although large corporations will also benefit from the easy installation and connectivity that Echo brings, Mitjonen believes that the benefits of Echo can best be seen in small and mid-size companies, where maintaining optimal conditions is crucial, but where resources do not allow the creation of the tailor-made systems that are often seen in larger enterprises.

Secure remote monitoring saves resources

A major benefit of Echo is the easy access to comprehensive reporting – both current and historic. Echo’s reporting on ambient conditions is also real-time and enables notifications and alerts. Remote access to trustworthy and comparable data can help geographically scattered companies compare sites to identify anomalies and take appropriate action to meet corporate targets. This helps reduce costs as it eliminates the need to travel to check and verify the data.

Remote monitoring requires data to be accessible online, so data security was a top priority for Vaisala when designing Echo. All data is encrypted in transit and rest, and secured with digital certificates. Echo also enables remote firmware updates for all connected devices. The result is upgraded security over the whole lifecycle of the measurement infrastructure.   
 

Reliable Pressure Transmitter with User-Friendly App Configuration

The JUMO DELOS S02 is a compact, reliable pressure transmitter. In addition to a classic analog output, the digital and innovative technologies IO-Link and Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) are available as interface. Therefore the devices can be used in many different industries. The pressure transmitter is used to acquire relative and absolute pressures in liquid and gaseous media. It offers a high degree of process reliability through maximum accuracy and long-term stability. Measuring ranges are from 0.4 to 60 bar relative or 0.4 to 60 bar absolute.

Different ways of configuration

The successor for the current JUMO DELOS SI can be configured via Bluetooth/app or IO-Link. Thanks to the Ethernet-capable (Single Pair Ethernet/SPE) version and the cloud connection, it is used in a wide range of industries (food and beverage, water and wastewater, heating and air conditioning, mechanical and plant engineering, test equipment construction, and laboratories). The JUMO DELOS S02 saves time and costs for users with its user-friendliness. The wide range of versions and interfaces enables a tailor-made selection for the respective area of application. 
 

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