DART and WirelessHART – New Technologies in the Making

Whenever an electric circuit is being opened, there is the danger of sparks which represent a special problem inside the Ex zone. Presently, creation of sparks is primarily prevented by special constructive means and installation techniques to prevent an electric circuit from being opened. At the same time, intrinsically safe solutions limit the amount of available power thereby preventing sparks from ever becoming incendive - strong enough for an ignition.

DART detects the characteristic voltage change caused by a spark and quickly turns off the circuit before the spark's temperature is sufficient for ignition. This way, even high power field instruments, such as magnetic valve controls, flow meters, scales, analysis and alarm devices, HMI terminals and even complete PCs can be used inside the Ex-Zone without requiring increased safety measures.

DART concepts are proven and patented. The market will start to see products in 2010. Leading experts consider this technology as the beginning of a totally new era of process automation.

WirelessHART is another exciting future technology. Pepperl+Fuchs has been involved in the development of this wireless standard right from the beginning and has repeatedly shown first prototype applications at the stand of the HART Communication Foundation during various trade shows.

WirelessHART is an enhancement of the established HART standard. It is the enabling technology for the development of cost effective wireless field devices offering a completely new dimension of versatility and flexibility. Some examples are measuring systems for quality and environment control with full integration into the communications infrastructure and process control.

In September 2007, the standard was officially released. Pepperl+Fuchs is presently developing a completely new range of WirelessHART devices which are going to open totally new opportunities for process automation. First products should be available at the beginning of 2009.

Both DART and WirelessHART will be demonstrated as part of a future technologies section at the stand of Pepperl+Fuchs at the INTERKAMA+ 2008 in Hanover. We are especially inviting hardware vendors, but also future-oriented users to get into an active dialog with us in order to jointly work at opening new applications for these fascinating new technologies.