Year of the Network: HART Expects 75% Growth by 2000

Increasing installations and good market performance indicate that highway addressable remote transducer (HART) technology will continue to be widely used in process plants for at least the next 15 to 20 years, according to the HART Communication Foundation (Austin, Tex.

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Increasing installations and good market performance indicate that highway addressable remote transducer (HART) technology will continue to be widely used in process plants for at least the next 15 to 20 years, according to the HART Communication Foundation (Austin, Tex.). HART's growing base includes about 2 million installations. The foundation estimates that more than 60% of all smart instruments currently shipping use HART for communication, and adds that industry experts forecast this will grow to 75% by 2000. Ron Helsen of the HART Communication Foundation adds that even after sufficient products become available to build a complete process plant using fieldbus technology, HART will continue to serve a large segment of the process instrumentation market. However, because HART was originally designed for maintenance technicians, the HART function is idle when technicians aren't connected to the instrument loop, which can waste a lot of digital information. To solve this problem, Peek Measurement here recently launched its Smart Adviser, a 24-channel HART multiplexer that performs essentially the same job as if the plant had 24 handheld instruments installed simultaneously.