Auma Profinet Actuators Enhance Connectivity
Auma has supplied electric actuators with Profinet communications for a modernisation project at a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Måløv, Denmark. The customer is Novafos, a major water company serving nine municipalities in eastern Denmark, close to Copenhagen.
Jens Ulrik Jensen (left), Auma sales, and Søren Præstiin (right), plant manager at Måløv WWTP (Image: Auma)
For the first phase of the modernisation, Auma supplied five SA .2 actuators with intelligent AC controls and Profinet interface to operate penstocks and valves on the plant. Along with other equipment, they are connected to local Profinet controllers in a star topology.
“We decided to invest in Profinet communications because Profinet is an open Industrial Ethernet standard with standardized structures,” plant manager Søren Præstiin says. “We also appreciate that Profinet is easily configured to provide secure remote access and web services, for both the plant as a whole and individual field devices. These are features that will be very important for us in the future.”
A key reason for choosing Auma actuators was the fact that they are available with direct Profinet connections and so do not require gateways. “We only considered devices with integral Profinet interfaces. Auma contrasts favourably with other manufacturers,” Mr. Præstiin explains.
Novafos operates 17 drinking water plants and 18 sewage treatment plants, and treats around 20 million m³ of water annually. An estimated total of more than 400 Auma actuators provides reliable valve automation across the Novafos plants.
Profinet is an Industrial Ethernet standard that combines the robustness of traditional fieldbus networks with the speed and flexibility of Ethernet. It offers full duplex transmission at 100 Mbit/s, comprehensive network diagnostics, automatic configuration, and alarm functions. Profinet is flexible in terms of both topology (MRP rings are popular to provide redundancy) and transmission media (copper, optical fiber and wireless).
Auma’s electric actuators with integral Profinet interface meet the requirements of Profinet specification 2.3. An integrated web server allows connection tests, status requests and fault diagnostics to be run quickly and easily. All operating commands and feedback signals are available via Profinet to Auma AC actuator controls thanks to the standardized device description (GSDML). A Field Device Integration (FDI) package is also available.
Source: AUMA Riester GmbH & Co. KG
