Magazine |

How IO-Link Wireless Enables Flexibility and Capacity

The IO-Link Wireless standard helps manufacturers optimize production to operate with reduced manual operations and changeovers and increased throughput.

IO-Link Wireless cloud computing abstract with blue background.

By Reid Schook, President, CoreTigo Inc.

In industrial automation, manufacturers constantly strive for a delicate balance between flexibility and capacity, because maximizing one typically reduces the other. Great efforts are made to optimize this ratio, although several obstacles hinder progress, such as complex cabling layouts on and between machines.

Fortunately, the IO-Link Wireless standard bridges this gap and revolutionizes factory automation connectivity and machine design, by maximizing both flexibility and throughput and reducing or eliminating changeover time.

About IO-Link Wireless

IO-Link Wireless provides industrial- and cable-grade, real-time wireless communication for control and monitoring, effectively addressing an existing gap in factory automation. It stands as the only wireless technology that meets the strict industrial requirements of low latency, reliability and scalability.

IO-Link Wireless is a global wireless communication standard developed to replace cables in remote sensors and actuator control and monitoring for factory automation. Built upon the IO-Link IEC 61131-9 standard, it serves as a system extension to the established IO-Link technology.

Similar to its wired counterpart, IO-Link Wireless technology entails high reliability, low latency, scalability, deterministic communication and robustness, all in a wireless format. Its unique suitability for the demands of Industry 4.0 has attracted the attention of some of the world's largest automation equipment manufacturers and machine builders, who have implemented it in their operations.

It provides seamless, vendor-agnostic, cable-free communication at the plant-floor level, offering a single wireless communication protocol for both control and monitoring. This makes it easier to support challenging applications and systems such as wireless control and sensing on independent cart technology, wireless intelligent tooling, wireless end-of-arm devices for robotics and more.

In addition, IO-Link Wireless supports simple and cost-effective deployment for both retrofits and new builds, enhancing flexibility and modularity.

The reliability performance of IO-Link Wireless technology is exceptional, with a packet error rate (PER) of 1e-9. In contrast, wireless standards such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee exhibit a PER of 1e-3, making IO-Link Wireless a million times more reliable. The deterministic nature of IO-Link Wireless is a result of its design as a deterministic protocol, guaranteeing the delivery of each data packet within a bounded delay.

What That Means

When manufacturers adopt IO-Link Wireless, production lines and machines can operate with reduced manual operations and changeovers, a smaller machine footprint and increased throughput. This opens new possibilities for machine adaptivity and overcomes connectivity constraints on the plant floor.

With U.S. offices in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and headquarters in Israel, Rockwell Automation Technology Partner CoreTigo Inc. provides wireless solutions for sensors, actuators and devices at the field level that aren't addressed by existing wireless networks. Its technology is based on the IO-Link Wireless communication standard, addressing the need for interoperable wireless communication between sensors, actuators and controllers, and providing a cable-grade wireless solution for demands of low latency, high reliability and scalability.

See CoreTigo at booth #442 at the 2023 Automation Fair event in Boston.

Like this article? Sign up for the digital magazine of The Journal From Rockwell Automation and Our PartnerNetwork and get articles like this delivered right to your inbox.

^{The Journal From Rockwell Automation and Our PartnerNetwork™ is published by Endeavor Business Media.}