New products - July/August 2001

Remote I/O brings cost savings in hazardous area control

ABB's s900 i/o remote system is claimed to deliver significant cost savings in hazardous area process control. Designed for remote installation in Zone 1 areas, with fieldbus connectivity back to the control system, it offers the a real alternative to the expense of multiple cabling from individual field devices mounted within a hazardous area.

It can be mounted physically close to hazardous area sensors, actuators and other devices, with each unit handling up to 128 digital or 64 analogue field devices. Up to 125 fieldbus nodes can be connected via a single fieldbus network, so that 10,000 inputs and outputs can be handled by a single S900 I/O network.

Incorporating full redundant networking capability, including redundancy in power supply and fieldbus communications, it is suitable for use with any process control system. With HART pass-through, all configuration of individual bus nodes, cyclic data exchange and acyclic services are available via the fieldbus. This includes complete support for HART status and diagnosis, and delivers further cost savings with reduced cabling and hardware through multi-instrument capabilities. Profibus DP V1 is fully supported, giving further operational cost savings throughout the plant's life. The eco-efficient unit has all input and output modules necessary for intrinsically safe connection.

• ABB Automation
  Email c162@industrialnetworking.co.uk