openSAFETY – First Uniform Safety Standard

The World’s First Uniform Safety Standard

The fieldbus-independent openSAFETY protocol was tested according to IEC 61784-3 FSCP 13 and approved by national IEC committees representing 27 countries including China, USA and Germany, and is therefore released for international standardization.

A link to the organization that developed the protocol: http://open-safety.org/

For a summary article on what this standard may achieve:  http://www.designworldonline.com/articles/5859/290/openSAFETY—The-World-s-First-Uniform-Safety-Standard.aspx

OpenSafety means that we now have a protocol that will allow interoperability between safety systems rather then requiring the safety system and communications solution to all come from one source.  This will likely have a very significant impact in the coming year.

A number of common communication standards are supported.

My thanks to Daniela Stricker for making me aware of this in the LinkedIn Industrial Ethernet group.