Marty Zielinski, Chair of the FieldComm Group’s Strategic Technology Committee, was the invited speaker for the ISA104 Teleconference Meeting held on March 16th, 2015. In his talk Marty discussed the relationship of the Field Device Integration (FDI) standard, IEC 62769, the EDDL international standard IEC 61804 and the FieldComm group. He noted that as of July, 2015 the FieldComm Group will assume maintenance and support for FDI technology. The initial release 1.0 for the FDI standard supports on-line access to field devices. The release 1.1 that came out in June, 2015 supports both on-line diagnostics and calibration and off-line configuration of field devices. This release of FDI technology will support HART, FF, PROFIBUS PA, DP, and Profinet devices. Support for off-line configuration is mandatory. Thus, FDI provides a unified way for a host to work with field devices. Marty noted that the FieldComm group will address certification of host device to insure consistent support/behavior.
If you want to learn more about the FieldComm group and the role FDI plays in field device maintenance and setup, then you can view Marty’s presentation using the link below.