National Instruments Joins ISP Fieldbus Foundation

Demonstration Shows LabVIEW in Fieldbus Process Control Application

October 12, 1993 -- Austin, TX- National Instruments announced today that
it has joined the InterOperable Systems Project (ISP) Foundation, an
independent organization that promotes and develops the ISP Fieldbus
Standard. National Instruments recently participated in the ISP Fieldbus
demonstration at ISA/93, where LabVIEW was used to monitor and trend
process variables queried from field devices connected through ISP
Fieldbuses.

The ISP Fieldbus demonstration consists of two processes controlled by four
separate fieldbuses, each with several types of field devices from
different manufacturers. Each fieldbus is controlled by one of four
distributed control systems (DCSs) from four different manufacturers. The
DCS acts as the ISP master on each bus, orchestrating and monitoring the
process control. The National Instruments demonstration interfaces a
single PC to each of the four separate ISP fieldbuses through a switch
that links the PC to any one of the four fieldbuses at a given time.

A LabVIEW program queries trend objects from several field devices on the
fieldbus and plots this trend data on the screen. In order to query the
field devices, LabVIEW cooperates with each DCS, acting as a second master
on the fieldbus and sending a message to the field device. The field
devices send a response packet containing the trend data. The trend object
is a feature of the ISP User Application specification whereby a field
device maintains a buffer of the last 20 values for parameters of
interest. A master on the fieldbus can then retrieve the data by reading a
particular trend object from the device. The trend object is useful for
any historical analysis such as statistical
process control (SPC) and was used in the demonstration preparations to
tune the control loops.

About the ISP Fieldbus 

Fieldbuses are the communication links between field devices and host
computers or controllers used in factory automation and process control
applications. The ISP Fieldbus is an emerging standard digital
communications bus that will replace the analog 4-20 mA current loop. The
ISP Foundation was formed to accelerate the availability of interoperable
systems and projects based on the International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC), the Instrument Society of America Standards and
Practices Group 50 (ISA SP-50), and other proven international fieldbus
technologies. Other members of the ISP Foundation, also participating in
the ISP Fieldbus Demonstration at ISA, include Fisher Controls, Rosemount,
Yokogawa, Siemens, Foxboro, and ABB Asea Brown Boveri.

Future ISP Products National Instruments plans to announce ISP-compatible
hardware and software products in late 1994.

For More Information 

For more information about the ISP Fieldbus Foundation, contact Audrey
Harvey, National Instruments, 6504 Bridge Point Parkway, Austin, TX
78730-5039, (512) 794-0100. Or call toll free in the U.S. and Canada at
(800) 433-3488. Fax: (512) 794-8411.

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