Fieldbus and Foundation Fieldbus Industry Status

by anonymous on 2012-02-13 11:36:13

Introduction: More than a decade ago, fieldbus was the hotspot in the automation industry. Around 2004, there were more than 20 types of coexisting fieldbuses, including IEC61158 (for measurement and control systems), IEC62026 (for low voltage switchgear and control gear) as well as later industrial Ethernet. In the past ten years, they have developed in different industries and contributed to the digitalization, networking, intelligence, and integration of automation instruments and systems.

Among the fieldbuses, FF (Foundation Fieldbus) and Profibus-PA are mainly applicable to process industries, serving as the signal transmission type for field transmitters. In practical applications, it coexists with conventional 4~20mA signals and HART signals. According to the report provided by ARC Advisory Group, an international professional consulting research institution in the United States, on the solutions of fieldbuses in the global process industry, the sales revenue of Foundation Fieldbus in 2006 was $5.666 billion, accounting for 68.1% of the total bus sales revenue; Profibus-PA was $2.638 billion, accounting for 31.7% of the total income; other buses were only $130,000, accounting for 0.2%. It is also predicted that by 2011, the revenue of Foundation Fieldbus could reach $1.7142 billion, accounting for 75.2% of the total income, with a compound annual average growth rate of 24.8% and a comprehensive annual average growth rate of 22.3%. Now, although affected by financial aspects in recent years, emerging economies such as China and India have reached or approached these forecast results. The statistics in 2008 showed that there were 12,000 installed Foundation Fieldbus systems worldwide, more than 1 million installed Foundation Fieldbus devices, over 100 installed systems in China, and tens of thousands of field devices.

The Current Application Status of FF Technology in China

Worldwide, the United States has many successful examples of applying FF technology in refining and chemical processing, power, metallurgy, offshore oil platforms, etc. For complex automatic combustion control systems such as parallel cascade cross-limiting, there are successful instances of adopting FF technology. In recent years, the refined and petrochemical mixed projects on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia used FF technology, with 60,000 field instruments and 5,700 FFH1 fieldbus segments; the large-scale petrochemical project at the Jammagar factory in Gujarat, India, had 20,000 FF fieldbus instruments and 3,500 FFH1 fieldbus segments. Both projects have been put into operation.

In China, taking large-scale projects as an example, the Shanghai Sinopec ethylene project was commissioned in 2005, with 14,375 FF fieldbus instruments and 2,473 FFH1 fieldbus segments; the Guangzhou Huizhou CNOOC Shell Petrochemical project was commissioned at the beginning of 2006, with 16,000 FF fieldbus devices and 3,000 FFH1 fieldbus segments; the Fujian integrated refining and chemical project (Quanzhou) was commissioned in 2009, with 8,033 FF fieldbus devices (including the use of 277 8-channel temperature transmitters, so it is equivalent to about 10,000 fieldbus measurement points) and 1,750 FFH1 fieldbus segments. The Fujian refining and chemical project received unanimous good reviews. Currently, the instrument integrity rate is 99.8%, the scale of the facility has expanded five times, but the number of instrument maintenance personnel has not increased. Moreover, the automation system of this project won the first prize for scientific and technological progress. The contracted and executed 20-million-ton large international project in Iran adopted FF fieldbus technology, which has accumulated experience for our country to undertake international projects. In addition, there are many medium-sized projects with around 500 FF field instruments, such as Shanghai Coke and Shanxi Sanwei; there are also many small projects with around 100 FF field instruments, such as Wuhan Organic Industry Company, where the use of FF field instruments helped their self-integrated system achieve better cost-performance.

In our country, FF instrument and system suppliers, including domestic companies like Shenyang Zhongke Bowei, Changzhou Bayi Cable Factory, and Yanshan Petrochemical Training Center, jointly formed the "China FF Market Committee". They hold 2-3 large conferences annually (including table exhibitions) and have held five sessions of the "International Fieldbus & Industrial Automation Instrument Exhibition and Technical Exchange Conference", promoting the development of the Chinese FF and other fieldbus markets.

Discussion on the Development Trend of FF Technology

FF technology has become quite popular globally. The Fieldbus Foundation now has 355 members, with over 400 registered services including field devices, auxiliary equipment, solutions, and training. There are already more than 20 host systems (including the latest three interoperability test-passed systems), among which nearly 10 Chinese companies offer six categories and more than ten products. Additionally, there are over ten books related to FF technology in China. For FF technology, multiple multi-variable transmitters, more than 40 online analyzers (including both physical properties and composition), and over 20 host systems (all new-generation DCS) are commendable achievements. This indicates that FF technology has broken through the original monopoly of analog signals and HART signals, rather than merely repeating or replacing them. Based on compatibility with existing technologies, FF technology gradually expands its market, smoothly transitions, seamlessly integrates, and leads automation technology towards digitalization, networking, integration, and intelligence, keeping pace with the times. Moreover, it remains at the forefront in areas such as interoperability, functional safety, wireless communication, PAT process analysis technology, and the entire lifecycle.

ARC has published multiple white papers on FF technology, including the "Foundation Fieldbus Provides Automation Infrastructure for Operational Excellence" white paper in early February 2007, which has been translated into Chinese and is worth reading. The key points include: FF technology as a unified structure provides a process automation system; the three basic value propositions include process integrity, business intelligence, open and scalable information integration; improving asset effectiveness, return on assets, reduced lifecycle costs, and various other strategic and financial goals as commercial values; FF technology aligns with the "Collaborative Process Automation" CPA concept published by ARC in key aspects; FF's functional safety can enhance process effectiveness and safety; the alliance between EDDL and OPCUA achieved through the Foundation Fieldbus can provide business process integration (in recent years, FDT technology has been absorbed, and a newer version of interoperability technology has been jointly developed); enhanced regulatory compliance and verification (such as compliance with the US FDA); support for open integration following international standards such as IEC61158, IEC61131-3, IEC61804, IEC61508, OPC (the de facto standard in the industry), etc.; scalable, flexible, and adaptable; FF technology as a system and not just a network is a sustainable path to the future.

China has taken the lead in the application of FF technology worldwide, which is an achievement worth cherishing. It has been used in overseas large-scale projects, and there are also many ongoing or soon-to-be-selected projects domestically, fully proving that the use of FF technology is an inevitable trend.