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The Emergence of Device-level Safety Communications in Manufacturing

Manufacturing is rapidly changing, driven by trends such as low volume/high mix, shorter lifecycles, changing labor dynamics and other global factors. One way industry is responding to these trends is by changing the way humans and machines safely work together, enabled by updated standards and new technologies including safety communications.

In the past, safety systems utilized hard-wired connections, often resulting in long cable runs, large wire bundles, difficult troubleshooting and inflexible designs. The more recent shift to safety networks addresses these issues and allows fast, secure and reliable communications between the various components in a safety control system. Another benefit of these communications systems is that they are key elements in implementing the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 solutions.

Within a typical factory, there are three or more communications levels, including an Enterprise level (Ethernet), a Control level (Ethernet based industrial protocol) and a Device/sensor level (various technologies). The popularity of control and device level industrial communications for standard control systems has led to strong demand for similar safety communications solutions.

Safety architectures based on the most popular control level protocols are now common and often reside on the same physical media, thereby simplifying wiring and control schemes. The table, below, includes a list of the most common safety control level protocols with their Ethernet-based industrial “parent” protocols and the governing organizations:

Ethernet Based Safety Protocol Ethernet Based Control Protocol Governing Organization
CIP Safety Ethernet IP Open DeviceNet Vendor Association (ODVA)
PROFISafe PROFINET PROFIBUS and PROFINET International (PI)
Fail Safe over EtherCAT (FSoE) EtherCAT EtherCAT Technology Group
CC-Link IE Safety CC-Link IE CC-Link Partner Association
openSAFETY Ethernet POWERLINK Ethernet POWERLINK Standardization Group (EPSG)

 

These Ethernet-based safety protocols are high speed, can carry fairly large amounts of information and are excellent for exchanging data between higher level devices such as safety PLCs, drives, CNCs, HMIs, motion controllers, remote safety I/O and advanced safety devices. Ethernet is familiar to most customers, and these protocols are open and supported by many vendors and device suppliers – customers can create systems utilizing products from multiple suppliers. One drawback, however, is that devices compatible with one protocol are not compatible with other protocols, requiring vendors to offer multiple communication connection options for their devices. Other drawbacks include the high cost to connect, the need to use one IP address per connected device and strong influence by a single supplier over some protocols.

Device level safety protocols are fairly new and less common, and realize many of the same benefits as the Ethernet-based safety protocols while addressing some of the drawbacks. As with Ethernet protocols, a wide variety of safety devices can be connected (often from a range of suppliers), wiring and troubleshooting are simplified, and more data can be gathered than with hard wiring. The disadvantages are that they are usually slower, carry much less data and cover shorter distances than Ethernet protocols. On the other hand, device connections are physically smaller, much less expensive and do not use up IP addresses, allowing the integration into small, low cost devices including E-stops, safety switches, inductive safety sensors and simple safety light curtains.

Device level Safety Protocol Device level Standard Protocol Open or Proprietary Governing Organization
Safety Over IO-Link/IO-Link Safety* IO-Link Semi-open/Open Balluff/IO-Link Consortium
AS-Interface Safety at Work (ASISafe) AS-Interface (AS-I) Open AS-International
Flexi Loop Proprietary Sick GmbH
GuardLink Proprietary Rockwell Automation

* Safety Over IO-Link is the first implementation of safety and IO-Link. The specification for IO-Link Safety was released recently and devices are not yet available.

The awareness of, and the need for, device level safety communications will increase with the desire to more tightly integrate safety and standard sensors into control systems. This will be driven by the need to:

  • Reduce and simplify wiring
  • Add flexibility to scale up, down or change solutions
  • Improve troubleshooting
  • Mix of best-in-class components from a variety of suppliers to optimize solutions
  • Gather and distribute IIoT data upwards to higher level systems

Many users are realizing that neither an Ethernet-based safety protocol, nor a device level safety protocol can meet all their needs, especially if they are trying to implement a cost-effective, comprehensive safety solution which can also support their IIoT needs. This is where a safety communications master (or bridge) comes in – it can connect a device level safety protocol to a control level safety protocol, allowing low cost sensor connection and data gathering at the device level, and transmission of this data to the higher-level communications and control system.

An example of this architecture is Safety Over IO-Link on PROFISafe/PROFINET. Devices such as safety light curtains, E-stops and safety switches are connected to a “Safety Hub” which has implemented the Safety Over IO-Link protocol. This hub communicates via a “black channel” over a PROFINET/IO-Link Master to a PROFISafe PLC. The safety device connections are very simple and inexpensive (off the shelf cables & standard M12 connectors), and the more expensive (and more capable) Ethernet (PROFINET/PROFISafe) connections are only made where they are needed: at the masters, PLCs and other control level devices. And an added benefit is that standard and safety sensors can both connect through the PROFINET/IO-Link Master, simplifying the device level architecture.

Safety

Combining device level and control level protocols helps users optimize their safety communications solutions, balancing cost, data and speed requirements, and allows IIoT data to be gathered and distributed upwards to control and MES systems.

 

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IO-Link Sensors in Tire Manufacturing

Much has been written here on Sensortech about IO-Link, and the advantages that an IO-Link-based architecture offers. In this article, we’ll take a look at a specific application where those IO-Link advantages are clear.

Tire manufacturing machinery in general, and tire curing presses in particular, incorporate numerous sensors and indicators that contribute to machine efficiency. As an example, tire curing presses often use magnetostrictive linear position sensors for feedback and control of mold open/close. Overwhelmingly, sensors that provide an analog, 4-20 mA signal are used. But maybe there’s a better alternative to typical analog feedback.

As discussed HERE and HERE, migration away from typical analog sensor signals to network-capable IO-Link interfaces makes a great deal of sense in many areas of application.

In a tire manufacturing operation, there are typically numerous, essentially identical curing presses, lined up in a row, all doing essentially the same job. Each press uses multiple analog position sensors that need each need to be connected to the press control system. As with pretty much analog device, the use of individual shielded cables is critical. Individual shielded cables for every sensor is a costly a time-consuming proposition. An Engineering Manager at a machine builder told us recently that wiring each press requires around 300 man hours(!), a significant portion of which is spent on sensor and indicator wiring.

Which brings us to IO-Link. Replacing those analog sensors with IO-Link sensors, allows feedback signals from multiple machines to be consolidated into single cable runs, and connected to the network, be it Ethernet/IP, EtherCat, Profinet, or Profibus. The benefits of such an approach are numerous:

  • Wiring is simple and much more economical
    • Eliminates need for shielded sensor cables
  • Integrated diagnostics allow remote machine status monitoring
  • Reduces more expensive analog IO on the controller side
  • Over-the-network configuration and the ability to store those configurations reduces setup time

And, by the way, the IO-Link story doesn’t end with position sensors. The ever-growing list of IO-Link enabled sensors and indicators allows the benefits to be rolled into many areas of machine automation, such as:

  • Intelligent IO-Link power supplies with HeartBeat technology that monitor their own “health” and report it back over the network (think Predictive Maintenance)
  • Highly-configurable IO-Link stack light alternatives that can be set up to display a number of machine and process condition states
  • IO blocks, memory modules, pressure sensors, discrete (on/off) sensors of all type, and more

To learn more about IO-Link, visit Balluff.com

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Position Monitoring with EtherCAT

Much has been written here on SensorTech about the value of industrial networking in the machine automation realm.  As the trend towards industrial networking continues to expand, we see more and more network-capable sensors coming to the fore.  Linear position sensors are no exception.

Network-connected linear position sensors take the concept of continuous, absolute linear position feedback a step or two forward by allowing the position sensor to be directly connected to the network, and also providing additional information in the form of sensor-level diagnostics.

Two such examples of network-connected linear position sensors are the newly introduced Micropulse EtherCAT position transducers.

Available in two varieties, one for basic position monitoring, and one capable of closed-loop positioning tasks, the Micropulse EtherCAT transducer is a good example of the continuing evolution of basic sensors towards more “intelligent” network-capable sensors.

For more information on industrial networking products, start here.