Thermal camera for condition monitoring and science applications.

The latest T-Series high-performance thermal camera, the FLIR T865 has been announced by FLIR Systems. Built for electrical condition and mechanical equipment inspection, and for use in research and development applications, the T865 provides ±1 °C (±1.6 °F) or ±1% temperature measurement accuracy, a wider temperature range between –40 °C to 120 °C (-40 °F to 248 °F), and more on-camera tools for improved analysis. A free 3-month subscription to FLIR Thermal Studio Pro and FLIR Route Creator, and a 1-month subscription to FLIR Research Studio is included with purchase.

With ±1 °C (±1.6 °F) or ±1% temperature measurement accuracy, professionals can more confidently inspect and assess equipment health regardless of the time between inspections or changes in environment conditions. By reducing measurement variation, companies can reliably prevent equipment breakdowns and outages in utility substations, power generation and distribution, data centers, manufacturing plants, or facility electrical and mechanical systems. For those in research and development, the improved accuracy provides the temperature measurement detail required to eliminate any guesswork in research, science, and design that uses the visualization of heat.

The T865 offers professionals versality with portable and handheld fixed mount options for inside and outside work in harsh conditions, and multiple lens options to inspect objects both near and far. The available 6° telephoto lens provides the required magnification for those routinely inspecting the condition of small targets at a distance, such as overhead power lines.

For inspections through an IR window, the available 42° wide angle lens and on-camera transmission adjustment ensures safe and accurate measurement of targets within enclosures. For those needing even more detail of small componentry, the available macro lens, along with the new macro-mode, provides 2x magnification compared to the standard lens. Further, the 640 x 480 detector resolution, offering 307,200 pixels or the UltraMax™ 1280 x 960 resolution, offering up to 1,228,800 pixels in FLIR Thermal Studio Standard and Thermal Studio Pro, allows professionals to see images clearly.

To make it easier to inspect multiple points with the T865 on the job such as those in power substations, the FLIR Route Creator plug-in installed on camera and Inspection Mode guides the inspector to important targets, planned before the inspection even takes place, and documents qualitative and quantitative thermal data. This helps inspectors spend less time in the field and face less hassle when creating survey reports. FLIR Thermal Studio Pro also enables professionals to more quickly process thermal images and create compelling reports for customers.

For research and development applications, when the T865 is connected to a preferred operating system with FLIR Research Studio installed on camera, an intuitive interface provides the ability to record and evaluate thermal data from multiple cameras and recorded sources simultaneously. The data can then be saved and shared in workspaces to more easily collaborate with colleagues, saving time and reducing the potential for misinterpreted data due to missing information.

The FLIR T865 is available globally today and through FLIR authorized distributors. 

@flir @mepaxIntPR #PAuto #RandD 

Northeast US market coverage.

Eastern Controls expands Northeast territory to include municipal market.

Eastern Controls is now the exclusive authorized sales and service provider of Endress+Hauser, for the municipal market in Northern New Jersey and the New York City metropolitan area, effective April 1, 2021.

“Eastern Controls is a long time, trusted, and dedicated sales and service partner of Endress+Hauser,” said Shaun Beauchesne, Area Vice President – East Central, Endress+Hauser. “We are excited to expand our partnership which will bring new capabilities, years of experience and application know-how to customers in the municipal market. We will continue to work alongside them to deliver best-in-class service and support to our customers.”

“Eastern Controls is very excited to expand our Water and Wastewater industry presence with Endress+Hauser,” said Cliff McLaughlin, President of Eastern Controls. “Since 1969, our team of dedicated professionals has supported the critical infrastructure of the United States of America with world class products, solutions, training, and services. We look forward to bringing our passion, along with the expertise of our manufacturing partners, to our new customers in this important industry.”

Eastern Controls has been an Endress+Hauser sales and service representative in the Northeast for almost six years in various markets. The company’s market basket of manufacturers, which includes instrumentation, valves, heat trace, and gas detection, provides a unique position for the team to solve the most complex customer challenges in the water and wastewater industry.

@Endress_US @EasternControls @Endress_Hauser #Pauto #USA

Over 7Gbps downlink (DL) achieved.

Anritsu Corporation's Radio Communication Test Station MT8000A has successfully achieved a downlink (DL) throughput over 7 Gbps using FR1+FR2 Dual Connectivity (DC) technology and 256QAM modulation in 5G Standalone (SA) mode in conjunction with MediaTek’s latest M80 5G modem. This industry-first achievement demonstrates Anritsu’s commitment to contribute to the development and wider rollout of new 5G services, which, through its collaboration with MediaTek, verifies leading-edge 5G technology features.

Together MediaTek and Anritsu have been focusing on development and testing of both FR1 and FR2 technologies and functions. Increasing data throughput based on FR1+FR2 DC and 256QAM has been one of the latest successes in this ongoing partnership.

FR1+FR2 DC combines FR1 and FR2 technologies to improve data throughput per user by grouping cell base stations with different frequency ranges to transmit data; the 256QAM modulation technology uses advanced RF and signal-processing technologies to support faster communications by sending 8 bits of data in a single symbol.

Increased data throughput has been a key factor in facilitating rich mobile services, and the combination of FR1+FR2 DC technology with 256QAM supporting DL throughput speeds greater than 7 Gbps represents an important milestone in future growth of 5G services. Anritsu, in partnership with MediaTek, will continue to play a proactive role in future development of leading 5G communications technologies.

“Anritsu’s powerful test platform has helped prove the technology-leading capabilities of the MediaTek M80 5G modem,” said JS Pan, General Manager of Wireless Communication System and Partnership at MediaTek. “Our continued partnership with Anritsu will lead to early development and faster time to market (TTM) for our global 5G mobile devices.”

On achieving this joint test result, Takeshi Shima, President of Test & Measurement Company, Anritsu Corporation said, “By offering our leading test solutions, Anritsu is happy to have assisted MediaTek in development of its market-leading 5G products. We look forward to continuing our future partnership with MediaTek in clearing the path for advanced 5G to contribute to building a happy and rich global culture through new wireless technology.”

Product Line
The Radio Communication Test Station MT8000A is an all-in-one platform supporting RF and protocol testing, functional and application operation testing, beam characteristics testing and more. As well as supporting both NSA and SA-mode base-station simulation functions required for development of 5G chipsets and terminals, it also covers FR1 frequency bands, including 600 MHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz, 4.5 GHz, and 6 GHz unlicensed bands, as well as the FR2 24 GHz, 28 GHz, 39 GHz, and 43 GHz mmWave bands, to support all the main bands used by 5G services.

Additionally, it supports the functions required for high-speed communications, such as 4x4 MIMO in FR1, 8CC and 256QAM in FR2 as well as supporting the latest 3GPP Release 16 features. Furthermore, the MT8000A provides a versatile and efficient test environment that is easily configured using a simple user interface and software to test device performance.

@Anritsu @AnritsuEMEA @MediaTek #TandM

From sheet metal to digital leader!

It is April 1, 1961, when an international success story begins in a small weaving mill in central Hesse - the standardization of enclosures. Rudolf Loh founds the Rittal company and changes the industry with one idea.

Rudolf Loh

What was initially smiled at is now a phenomenon: The standard enclosure is used in millions of product solutions in over 90 percent of all industries worldwide. Rittal is the innovation and world market leader for enclosure technology and IT infrastructure. 10,000 employees worldwide work on new innovations, industry solutions and business models. A small steel manufacturing company has become a global digital enterprise. What hasn't changed: Rittal is a family business - responsibility, solidarity and social commitment have always been a top priority.

Rittershausen in Dietzhölztal - no one knew in 1961 that a small township in central Hesse would one day give its name to a global company. Rudolf Loh bought an old weaving mill and founded Rittal. 

The idea: standard enclosures in standard production, immediately available from stock, faster and better than the individually manufactured enclosures for control components of machines at that time. Long delivery times and quality defects were now a thing of the past. The boom of the post-war years had changed industrial manufacturing. Machines were interconnected and produced products in large series in the wake of growing consumption. 

So, Rudolf Loh's idea came just at the right time.

A lot has happened since then - Read On:

@Rittal_Ltd @PresseBox #PAuto 

Bus error detection capabilities.

The Institute of Computer-Architecture and System-programming (ICAS) of the University of Kassel has examined the CAN XL data link layer protocol specified in CiA 610-1. More than half of a year, Prof. Dr. Josef Börcsök and his team investigated in the evaluation of the error detection mechanisms provided by the CAN XL protocol. The final research report comprises a qualitative evaluation of the residual error probability, too.

Graphical representation of RER values in an exemplary CAN XL network

“The report concludes that CAN XL is at least as reliable as competing network technologies,” said Holger Zeltwanger, CiA Managing Director. “This is a very conservative estimation.”

CAN in Automation (CiA) members have developed the CAN XL data link layer specification. It is available in the CiA 610-1 CAN XL data link layer and physical signaling document. The data link layer (DLL), also known as layer-2 in the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model, provides the functional and procedural means to transfer frames between network entities (nodes) and to detect errors that occur in the physical layer. Frames or DLL protocol data units (PDUs) do not cross the boundaries of a network segment. Inter-network routing and global addressing are higher-layer functions, allowing data-link protocols to focus on local delivery, addressing, and media arbitration. In this way, the DLL is analog to the neighborhood traffic police; it arbitrates between parties competing for access to a medium.

CAN XL, the third CAN generation, features two CRC polynomials, stuff-bit checks, and frame format checks to detect errors in CAN XL frames. In the summary, the researchers concluded: “The CAN XL protocol improves reliability by using cascaded Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRCs). In that, the MAC frame has two CRC fields: the 13-bit Preface-CRC (PCRC) and the 32-bit Frame-CRC (FCRC). The CRCs are cascaded so that the FCRC also protects the PCRC. Together, both CRCs can detect any five randomly distributed bit errors.” This compares with a true Hamming Distance of 6 with no shortcuts. “The format checks and the stuff-bit checks additionally ensure the detection of errors in a frame. Here, not only the errors in the format fields and in the stuff bits are recognized, but partly also the errors in the remaining bits, which can entail the corruption of the values in the format fields and stuff bits.” The researchers developed new formulas for the residual error rate (RER) calculation, in order to cover the extended error detection measures in CAN XL. With them you can calculate the RER for a given CAN XL network. The figure shows an example as provided in the research report.

The researchers emphasize “that due to the worst-case assumptions of the values of some parameters in the development of the formula, as well as in the calculation of the final values, a pessimistic estimate of the RER” is given. This means, the calculated RER values are conservative.

To make the estimation of the upper bound value more precise, the channel model can be improved, to match better to the errors that occur in a specific environment, like burst length, duration of a glitch, and bit error rate. Further the estimation can consider more features of the FCRC and PCRC polynomials. When using the formula to calculate the values, it should be considered that the FCRC for the block length of up to 274 bit features a minimum Hamming Distance of 8. For block length with more than 275 bit, the Hamming Distance is in minimum 6. This means, five randomly distributed bit errors are detected.

@CANopen @presseunikassel #PAuto #Standards

Uninterruptible power supply (300-1200kVA).

Delta Electronics has added the Ultron DPS model to its family of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), which now offers capacities ranging from 300-1200 kVA. This latest Ultron online UPS is rated at 1000-1200 kVA megawatt-scale performance with an extremely small footprint that makes the Ultron DPS UPS ideally suited for use in large and colocation data centres, where high-density performance and the associated space savings are essential for profitable operations.

The Ultron DPS series is a next-generation monoblock UPS system, designed with enhanced availability, performance and manageability. 

Key benefits include:

• Compared with similar products on the market, the new DPS series UPS is an exceptionally competitive product with the highest power density and the smallest footprint, addressing the increasing requirements of colocation and cloud service providers. In addition, it offers a LiB ready solution that saves space and reduces risk throughout the lifecycle of the uninterruptible power system
• Up to 8 Ultron DPS series UPSs can be paralleled to provide up to 9.6MW of power capacity to support power expansion or N+X redundancies. Featuring high power capacity and high energy efficiency, the Ultron DPS is up to 96% efficient at light load conditions and achieves up to 96.5% in online mode
• The Ultron DPS series offers proactive intelligence to warn IT managers of impending failures before they occur. This reduces the risk of downtime as well as the time and expense that maintenance work involves. Advanced event analysis includes up to 10,000 event logs, and waveform capturing allows the detection of external conditions to ensure high availability.

Customers have adopted this UPS for power backup and data center applications across industries such as colocation, manufacturing, semiconductors, and others.

@DeltaEMEA @mepaxIntPR #Pauto #UPS

A successful event but...

The Emerson User Group EMEA ended yesterday (31st march 2021) and President Roel van Doren reported a very successful event. Over 8500 registered from in excess of 110 countries and 25000 attendances were recorded at the more than 300 presentations. It was indeed a very well organised event but perhaps the great missing element was the lack of personal interaction with fellow attendees. 

Discover! Design! Deliver!

What was missing!

So what was the message? Obviously this event could be described as the "Discover" phase. Participants then could go away and co-operating with the equipment suppliers and system builders design and then the suppliers would deliver and install. Simples (as a famous advert says!). So what did we discover?

A whole lot of learning has happened since this particular event was first planned to meet in March 2020 in the Italian city of Milan. If the CoVID-19 did anything it concentrated the minds of scientific and industrial advances not only in the production of several vaccination products in a heretofore unimaginable time frame but in wholesale advances in use of digitisation.

But there are other things happening in the background. The understanding of our interdependance with the natural world gained as well and the emphasis that Emerson are placing on sustainability. Natural resources are finite and investigations are proceeding apace to discover new generating methods for energy, reducing or even eliminating the use of hydrocarbons. We heard the aphorism "Hydrogen is the rockstar!" more than once during the three years.

We were introduced to the latest advanced automation technologies and how they address global sustainability challenges, such as ensuring reliable power distribution and meeting the demand for clean fuels, such as hydrogen. Emerging technologies are creating new industrial computing architectures that help to transform operations and drive efficiency improvements. In a word the green agenda and digitisation.

The free of charge presentations are still available on-line.

See also:

From defence to reimagining the new era! (29/3/21)

In the clouds! (30/3/2021)

Previous EMREX Events through the years (Reports over the past 10 plus years)

@Emerson_News @EMR_Automation @HHC_Lewis #EMrex #Pauto #EMEA