Industrial Automation and Wireless IoT 5th Edition

Industrial Automation and Wireless IoT 5th Edition

Industrial Automation and Wireless IoT is the fifth consecutivereport from Berg Insight analysing the latest developments on themarket for wireless IoT applications in industrial automationworldwide. This strategic research report from Berg Insight providesyou with 200 pages of unique business intelligence including 5-yearindustry forecasts and expert commentary on which to base yourbusiness decisions.

Industrial Automation and Wireless IoT 5th Edition

Wireless technologies are integrated into a wide range of devices that can be used throughoutan automation system, from the enterprise level all the way to the control and field levels. Thedevices can be broadly divided into two segments: automation equipment and networkequipment. In the automation equipment segment, high-volume product categories featuringwireless communications capability include instrumentation such as industrial sensors, as wellas wireless I/O and field devices that connect to sensors, actuators and machines. Importantproduct categories within the network equipment segment are wireless access points, gateways,routers and switches.

Berg Insight estimates that annual shipments of wireless devices for industrial automationapplications including both network and automation equipment reached 10.7 million unitsworldwide in 2023, accounting for approximately 9 percent of all new connected nodes. Growingat a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 percent, annual shipments are expected toreach 19.1 million in 2028. The installed base of wireless devices in industrial automationapplications is forecasted to grow from an estimated 56.5 million connections at the end of 2023to 110.3 million connected devices by 2028.

The adoption of wireless solutions in industrial environments is often a gradual process and aninitial deployment typically comprises clusters of wireless devices connected to an existing wirednetwork. Although wired networking solutions are still predominantly used for industrialcommunications between sensors, controllers and systems, wireless solutions are widely usedas wire replacements in hard-to-reach or hazardous areas, on moving machine parts and onportable equipment. Standardised wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.15.4 andBluetooth have advanced to become the leading wireless technologies for industrialapplications. Emerging technologies based on 5G broadens the addressable market for wirelesscommunications as it allows for deployments where requirements related to bandwidth, latencyor capacity cannot be fulfilled today.

Automation equipment such as wireless instrumentation is offered by many large automationvendors as part of complete systems for automation of industrial processes, but also byspecialised providers. Emerson became the first company to market WirelessHART products in2008 and has today an installed base of over 10 million wireless pressure transmitters worldwide.Major wireless instrumentation vendors further include Yokogawa and Honeywell, which bothprovide field devices based on the wireless technology ISA100.11a. Other major industrialautomation vendors that provide wireless field devices include ABB, Endress+Hauser, Hitachi,OMRON, Pepperl+Fuchs, Schneider Electric and Siemens. Wireless I/O and field devices arealso offered by a diverse range of players that are primarily active in the industrialcommunications and control markets. These include for example Advantech, Belden, BannerEngineering, Cisco, MultiTech, OleumTech, Phoenix Contact, Steute, Wago and Weidmüller.

Major providers of wired industrial network equipment also offer wireless solutions to enablecustomers to monitor and control devices wirelessly in parts of the plant that are normally notconnected to the control room due to accessibility or wiring costs. These include Siemens, Cisco,Belden, Moxa and Phoenix Contact, which all offer industrial wireless devices such as routers,gateways and access points along their wired solutions. Additional providers of industrial WLANdevices include small to mid-size vendors such as Advantech, Ependion, Wago, HMS Networks,Red Lion Controls, Nexcom, INSYS Microelectronics, Lantronix, Welotec and TeltonikaNetworks.

Cellular and unlicensed proprietary radio solutions are typically used for data acquisition andbackhaul communications in distributed automation applications. The largest providers ofcellular IoT gateways and routers in the industrial space include Cisco, Semtech, DigiInternational, Moxa, GE Vernova, HMS Networks, Advantech, Robustel, InHand Networks andTeltonika Networks. Vendors of proprietary radio modems are GE Vernova, FreeWaveTechnologies, Banner Engineering and Schneider Electric.