This spring, the Fieldbus Foundation (FF) conducted the first live demonstration of its Foundation for Remote Operations Management (ROM) technology at the Petrobras research and development facility (Cenpes) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Touting the "first development of its kind" integrating remote input/output (I/O), ISA 100.11a, WirelessHART, wired HART, and Foundation fieldbus H1 protocols into a single, standard data management environment, Foundation for ROM extends the capabilities of Foundation fieldbus to wired and wireless devices installed in some of the world's harshest and most remote locations, providing a unified digital infrastructure for asset management in applications ranging from tank farms and terminals to pipelines, offshore platforms, and even OEM skids.
Whether operating on a wired or wireless HSE backhaul network, FF states that the Foundation for ROM solution enables automation end users to bring device data into the Foundation fieldbus infrastructure, which provides a single source of data management, diagnostics, alarms and alerts, data quality control, control-in-the-field capability and object-oriented block structure.
Petrobras is said to be interested in specifying Foundation for ROM technology for "ambitious projects" it is undertaking in the upstream and downstream hydrocarbon industry. The company has a record-setting $224 billion capital spending plan through 2015 with most of the investments targeted at the upstream sector in the Pre-Salt area of the Santos Basin.
The Petrobras Centro de Pesquisas Leopoldo Américo Miguez de Mello, also known as Cenpes, is the largest oil and gas research center in the Southern Hemisphere. During the field demonstration and press day event, a series of tests were performed on a distillation process pilot plant to evaluate the use of fieldbus-based ROM devices with wireless protocols for remote applications.
Miguel Borges, senior equipment engineer at the Cenpes facility, believes Foundation for ROM can be an enabling technology for remote applications on Petrobras' offshore platforms.
"The Fieldbus Foundation's ROM solution is attractive to us, since we want to gain access to diagnostic information from devices installed at our remote sites," Borges said. "For Petrobras, the primary objective of this live demonstration was to verify that we could access and use remotely, with Foundation for ROM, all the operational functionalities available locally. Another objective was to check the interoperability of ROM devices of different manufacturers over the backhaul. We found this technology provides very easy and quick integration, and is transparent to the user."
During the functional testing, Petrobras technicians accessed device diagnostics in wireless devices, including device status. Integration of video was demonstrated through observation of a control valve to determine if the valve was open or closed. A temperature sensor for a HART temperature transmitter was also pulled to show how the diagnostic alert would be visible in the same context as a Foundation fieldbus H1 device.
Supplier members sponsoring the Foundation for ROM demonstrations included APATechnologies, AUMA, Azbil, Beka Associates, Belden, Biffi, Buerkert Werke, Emerson Process Management, Endress+Hauser, Festo Brazil, Fuji Electric, Honeywell, Invensys Operations Management, Leoni-Kerpen, Magnetrol, MTL, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, R. Stahl, Rotork, Smar, Softing, StoneL, Turck, Westlock, and Yokogawa Electric.
