n NEWS June 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com 10 PROFINET AND ETHERNET/IP HAVE reinforced their position as joint leaders of the industrial communications market, with each accounting for 18% of new factory automation nodes installed in the past year, according to HMS Networks’ annual survey of the industrial comms market. Their shares have increased slightly from 17% each last year, while EtherCat has also added 1% to its share, taking it to 12% of the global market. For the first time, various versions of industrial Ethernet now account for more than two-thirds (68%) of the node market, up from 66% in 2022. The number of newlyinstalled industrial Ethernet nodes grew by around 10% over the past year. Modbus-TCP has slipped slightly from 6% to 5% of the communications market, while CC-Link IE Field has grown slightly from 2% to 3%, giving it the same share as Powerlink, which has retained 3% of the market. Fieldbus technologies have continued their long-term decline, dropping from 27% of new nodes in 2022 to 24% this year. Profibus leads the fieldbus rankings with 6% of the total communications market (down from 7%), with Modbus-RTU close behind on 5% (the same as last year). CC-Link and DeviceNet have both dropped by 1% to 3%, while CANopen stays on 2%. HMS points out that while the number of new fieldbus nodes is declining, many devices, machines and factories will continue to rely on proven fieldbus technologies for many years to come. Wireless communications is the fastestgrowing segment, although from a fairly modest base. The number of wireless nodes installed has risen by 22% over the past year, from 7% to 8% of the total industrial communications market. The segment is dominated by WLAN technologies with 4% of the market, followed by Bluetooth on 1%. Other wireless technologies, including 5G, account for 2% of the market. In Europe and the Middle East, the leading industrial communications technologies are EtherNet/IP, Profinet and EtherCat, with Profibus and Modbus-TCP as runners-up. The US market is dominated by EtherNet/IP, with EtherCat gaining market share. The fragmented Asian market is led by Profinet, followed by EtherNet/IP, CC-Link/CC-Link IE Field, EtherCat, Profibus, and Modbus (RTU/TCP). HMS expects the total global market for industrial networking nodes to expand by 7% this year. • For the first time in its history, the EtherCat Technology Group (ETG) has published figures to the number of EtherCat nodes in use. It says that there a now 59.1m nodes in service, with 18.4m of them added last year. Industrial Ethernet exceeds two-thirds of the comms market for first time ROCKWELL AUTOMATION HAS formed a strategic partnership with German-based autonox Robotics, which manufactures bare-bones robot mechanics without controls. They are combining Rockwell’s Kinetix motors and drives with autonox’s robot mechanics to offer systems with a single catalogue number. The robots are programmed and controlled in a single environment using Rockwell’s Logix controllers and Studio 5000 automation system design software. This avoids the need to coordinate disparate machine control and robot systems, providing instead a simplified system architecture that will help users to deploy systems faster and create more effective robotic automation systems. The robot combinations will be based on autonox’s Delta “tripod”robots and its DuoPod robots, which are also based on parallel kinematics but offer two degrees of freedom (rather than three translational and one rotational degree of freedom of a delta robot) “Manufacturers everywhere are facing a need to implement automation that is more agile and more intuitive so that their teams can act quickly, and they can realise the full potential of a robotic implementation to optimise their processes,” says Ritchie Logan, global lead for robotics technology partnerships at Rockwell Automation. “By using our unified robot control capability with autonox robots, companies can be better prepared to get the most out of their manufacturing assets today and be ready with flexible solutions that can meet future demands.” “We are incredibly excited to partner with Rockwell Automation to achieve our goal of providing innovative robotic solutions that can be operated directly with Rockwell drive technology,” adds autonox Robotics CEO, Hartmut Ilch. Autonox, founded in 2002, has production facilities and application centres in Germany and the US and a portfolio of more than 300 models. It employs 52 people. www.autonox.com Rockwell links with autonox to marry controls with mechanics Industrial Ethernet dominates the industrial communications market with sales rising by 10% in the past year. The wireless market has expanded by 22%, while sales of fieldbus nodes have fallen by 5%. Source: HMS Networks
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