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Ares I launched this week, after several delays.  I watched it live, it was awesome.  But two of the three parachutes malfunctioned and caused some damage to the booster.

Back from ISA Expo 2009 in Houston.  Attended several class for wireless technologies and ISA100.11a.  It looks to be a very good standard and should help bring order to the wireless landscape to the instrumentation/process/industrial automation industries.

I attended a one day class taught by Dr. Peter Fuhr, and several technical conferences about wireless systems and technologies.  A tool that Dr. Fuhr was using caught my eye.  He had a RF spectrum analyzer on his computer that only cost $200, that would be get for my work.  It’s from Metageek and comes in 2.4 GHz and a 900 MHz version.

“This standard is intended to provide reliable and secure wireless operation for non-critical monitoring, alerting, supervisory control, open loop control, and closed loop control applications. This standard defines the protocol suite, system management, gateway, and security specifications for low-data-rate wireless connectivity with fixed, portable, and moving devices supporting very limited power consumption requirements. The application focus is to address the performance needs of applications such as monitoring and process control where latencies on the order of 100 ms can be tolerated, with optional behavior for shorter latency.

To meet the needs of industrial wireless users and operators, this standard provides robustness in the presence of interference found in harsh industrial environments and with legacy non-ISA100 compliant wireless systems. As described in Clause 4, this standard addresses coexistence with other wireless devices anticipated in the industrial workspace, such as cell phones and devices based on IEEE 802.11x, IEEE 802.15x, IEEE 802.16x, and other relevant standards. Furthermore, this standard allows for interoperability of ISA100 devices, as described in Clause 5.” – ISA page (ISA-100.11a-2009)

Just got finished with a EN 13980 assessment audit for work.

EN 13980 is an EU (European Union) standard for companies that are looking to produce ATEX (EU Directive 94/9/EC and 99/92/EC) rated equipment.  It’s based off ISO 9001, with specifics to components and products in explosives atmospheres.  It is not a free standard but the cost is small and can be purchase at many different website, usally depending on the language (BSI for English).

For a company, such as Otis Instruments, that is looking to produce ATEX rated equipment two certifications are needed; and they are the Quality Assurance Notification (QAN) and the EC Type Examination Certificate.  The Quality Assurance Notification is issued to a company that has had an assement audit for compliance to EN 13980.  A  EC Type Examination Certificate is a certificate issued for specific hardware that has passed testing from the ATEX standard (usually based of EN 16079, among others).

Once that is complete the company can build the product and issue a Declaration of Conformity.  The Declaration of Conformity states that the product is built and tested to comply with ATEX.

This process is very different than what is normally done in North America.  In North America the equivalent standards, testing, and certifications are done/controlled by UL, FM, ETL, and CSA.

Here is a quote from the BSI site :

“Potentially explosive atmospheres – Application of quality systems
Executive summary

Requirements and information for establishing and maintaining quality systems for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.
Abstract

This European Standard specifies particular requirements and information for establishing and maintaining a quality system within potentially explosive atmospheres.

It is intended for use by manufacturers, notified bodies and regulatory authorities.

When notified bodies assess the quality systems of manufacturers this standard is intended to be the basis of the initial assessment and subsequent visits.
History and related standards

This European Standard is complementary to EN ISO 9000 and EN ISO 9001 and is applicable to products intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.

This standard includes the following cross references:

prEN 13237-1, EN 45012, EN 45014, EN ISO 9000:2000, EN ISO 9001:2000.“