Written by Tony Deane, Technical Manager

“One small step for Phoenix Contact. One giant leap for the Process Automation industry”

In today’s current climate of digitalisation and IIoT, there is a major trend going on across all industries. Namely users are demanding more information from their plant with the goal of optimising assets to improve operating performance.

The increased demand is pushing Ethernet to move further out into the plant, closer to field devices. However, in terms of integrating Ethernet into process instrumentation at the device level, we are some way from that point.

Each year around 900,000 Profibus PA instruments are sold into industry. Profibus PA is extremely popular within the process industry due to the advantages it offers e.g. extended cabling, explosion protection, power to field devices, digital integration into asset management.

Up until recently obtaining and receiving signals to and Profibus PA up into Profinet / Ethernet layer had to be done via a Profibus DP Master.

Enter the AXL P BK PN-AF Platform, from Phoenix Contact. The AXK P BK PN – AF is a Profinet bus coupler device which drills down directly to Profibus PA negating the need for the Profibus DP layer. Therefore, reducing infrastructure, system component and installation costs as well as streamlining overall system architecture.

The AXL P BK PN – AF Bus coupler features the following

• 8 Profibus PA Segments with High power trunk per Bus Coupler. Each segment can support 32 devices. Which means each coupler can support 256 Profibus PA devices.
• Dual redundant pluggable power supplies for each Profibus PA segment. Ensuring high availability, if required.
• The AXL P BK PN – AF Bus coupler supports Profinet S2 redundancy. Once again providing the maximum of system availability.
• The AXL P BK PN – AF Bus coupler boasts a full complement of Hot swappable I/O that co-exist alongside the Profibus PA Segments on the AXL P BK PN – AF Bus coupler. Including Intrinsically safe digital and analog Inputs and Outputs, Supervised Inputs (Namur), Hart Inputs and Outputs Giving your system maximum flexibility in terms of protocol connectivity when dealing with legacy plant scenarios.

This platform is currently being deployed by customers across a diverse range of industries including Food and Beverage, Oil and Gas, Pharmaceutical and many more.

Phoenix Contact have also created user guides showing how to integrate AXL P BK PN-AF Platform into several third-party PLC systems as well as Phoenix Contact’s PLC Next Technology ecosystem.

Below is a table of the available I/O for the AXL P BK PN-AF Platform

For more information, contact Tony Deane on 07824 437393 or email tdeane@phoenixcontact.com