1394AUTOMATION GROUP JOINS 1394 TRADE ASSOCIATION

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1394AUTOMATION GROUP JOINS 1394 TRADE ASSOCIATION
20 October 2003 - Nyquist Industrial Control

First quarter of 2004 the European 1394automation group will join the 1394 Trade Association. Two organisations that promote the IEEE 1394 network standard join forces to form a worldwide group in favour of 'the only standard where Motion, Vision and I/O are brought together in one cable'.

In the past year, the 1394automation group (www.1394automation.org) has taken the initiative to open up the industrial automation world for FireWire and started discussions with the 1394 Trade Association (www.1394ta.com) to reach global coverage. As a following step the 1394automation group will join the 1394 Trade Association. Twan Smetsers, Marketing of Nyquist Industrial Control: 'In the coming months we will prepare this merger. We expect that the 1394automation group will be part of the 1394 Trade Association in the first quarter of next year. By combining the best of both worlds, this clearly leads to 'one cable, one worldwide standard'. IEEE 1394 will gain an even stronger position in the market.' According to James Snider, Executive Director of the 1394 Trade Association: 'Motion Control would be the next area that the Trade Association is focussing on. The European group is strongly involved in Motion Control. So I am very glad that by joining forces, we can improve the IEEE 1394 standard for the Motion Control area in a short time.'

IEEE 1394 is an international, open, PC-based network standard that is rapidly becoming adopted by the industry. IEEE 1394 was originally developed by Apple Computer for the consumer market, to send video images smoothly across a network. In the consumer world, the standard is also known as FireWire or i.Link.

On the initiative of Nyquist Industrial Control and Wago Kontakttechnik, a number of European companies and organisations have united in the 1394automation group. This group was introduced in April 2002 during the Hannover Messe Industrie in Hanover, Germany and comprises disciplines as Drives, Motion, Vision and I/O. The group wants to define a solution that will enable different controllers to communicate on the same IEEE 1394 bus. 'To implement this standard it is important to agree on a set of specifications', says Eric Hezemans, chairman of the Executive Board of 1394automation and CEO of Nyquist Industrial Control. Besides Nyquist and Wago, current participants in 1394automation include Basler Vision Components, Eurotherm Antriebstechnik GmbH, Fraunhofer Institute, Institut für Mikroelektronik- und Mechatronik-Systeme GmbH, Lust Antriebstechnik GmbH, maxon motor and Stöber Antriebstechnik GmbH.

Eight years before the establishment of the European 1394automation group, the 1394 Trade Association was founded. Their mission is 'to promote the proliferation of the IEEE 1394 standard into the computer, consumer, peripheral and industrial markets to enable a truly interoperable, standardised, universal I/O and backplane interconnect'. Among the 170 members of the 1394 Trade Association are companies as Sony, Intel, MicroSoft, JVC, Philips and Samsung.

The combination of technology developed for consumers (economy of scales) and IEEE 1394 properties made Nyquist to choose this standard for their Motion Control systems. Eric Hezemans: 'We wanted to have an existing system that was affordable for our purposes, and we ended up with the PC-platform as basis, having an outstanding user interface and lots of software available. For the connection between the different devices we chose again for existing technology: the versatile, high-speed, low-cost, peer-to-peer IEEE 1394 bus.' Of crucial importance for IEEE 1394 with respect to Motion Control is that data transfers fast, synchronously and in real-time between devices. The currently existing 400 Mbit and 800 Mbit per second transmission speed is fast enough for the coming generation of high-speed industrial control systems. 'IEEE 1394 is the only standard where Motion, Vision and I/O are brought together in one cable', according to Hezemans. Transmission speeds up to 3200 Mbit per second are under development.

That the world is adopting the IEEE 1394 standard is clearly noticeable. Hezemans: 'For example, all PC-OEM's nowadays place the FireWire default on their motherboards. Over 50 million FireWire units were sold last year worldwide, and this number is increasing fast. Furthermore, already since 1998 there are running industrial applications using IEEE 1394 technology.'

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About: Nyquist Industrial Control
Nyquist has a long and rich history. A history that goes back to the beginning of the early seventies, when the company was still part of Philips. Since then, the organisation has played a pioneering role in the field of high-quality Motion Control systems, VME and PLC machine control platforms.

The foundations for the present-day company Nyquist Industrial Control were paved in the seventies. This happened when the first standardised servo system was developed, initially created for Philips' internal machine building. This led to a large international installed base, both within and outside of our own organisation. For instance, the doors of the Dutch Railways' trains are still fitted with VME-based control systems from Nyquist. And then just think of all the automatically opening bridges, traction systems, trams, machines for making glass moulds, embroidering machinery, pastry-making machines, ships' terminals, incinerators and water purification plants.

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