Emerson and CoreTigo have teamed up on a wireless industrial automation solution that cuts compressed air waste, lowers CO2 emissions, and simplifies factory upgrades without touching existing PLC setups.
Global technology leader Emerson creates sustainable solutions for their customers with CoreTigo's wireless industrial automation technologies. The collaboration tackles the challenges of Compressed Air Management in machinery, ultimately reducing energy waste and CO2 emissions, while enhancing maintenance efficiency and operational processes.
The solution enhances Emerson's AVENTICS high-end air flow and pressure regulation units, by supplementing and retrofitting these into wireless units with CoreTigo's IO-Link Wireless products. Named the "Energy Saver", the solution provides a holistic approach that creates the most cost-efficient and simple way to enhance production lines with an advanced air treatment application. For many manufacturers, compressed air systems represent one of the largest hidden costs in their operations. Leaks, inefficient pressure management, and unnecessary airflow during idle periods silently drain resources and inflate energy bills. The Emerson-CoreTigo partnership directly targets these pain points with a solution that is both practical and scalable.
The Aventics AF2 Air Flow Sensor and EV12 Pressure Regulator are each connected to CoreTigo's IO-Link Wireless Bridge (TigoBridge), which instantly converts it into a wireless device with industrial-grade communication capabilities. The TigoBridges transmit wirelessly to CoreTigo's IO-Link wireless gateway, while the Energy Saver provides a constant stream of airflow data from "Floor to CloudTM" for analysis and monitoring. This continuous visibility into air consumption patterns means facility managers can identify waste in real time rather than waiting for quarterly audits or discovering problems only after equipment fails. Having that data available without pulling cables across a factory floor is what makes the retrofit approach so appealing.
In addition, the solution from EMERSON controls the pressure regulation unit independently from the machine's PLC or the air compressor, allowing intelligent operation without machine downtime or PLC programming. Maintaining control over air pressure is essential for ensuring the machine remains in a stable and secure state during periods of inactivity, while also minimizing pressure to prevent unnecessary air wastage. That independence from the central PLC is a crucial design choice. It means production lines do not need to be halted for installation, and engineers do not need to rewrite control logic to accommodate the new monitoring capabilities.
The Energy Saver solution offers a range of benefits, including a reduction in CO2 emissions through minimized air leakages and optimized machine idle mode operation. It ensures sustainability and compliance with regulatory standards, promoting environmentally friendly manufacturing. As regulators across Europe and North America tighten industrial emissions requirements, solutions like this give manufacturers a clear path to compliance without wholesale equipment replacements.
By preventing prolonged non-optimal air flow, it minimizes unplanned downtime and maintenance requirements, while reducing cable wear and tear thanks to its wireless setup. Its simple deployment requires no modifications to the PLC setup or complex cabling layouts. Furthermore, it contributes to cost savings by lowering energy expenses and reducing maintenance and deployment costs overall. The elimination of physical cabling also removes a common point of failure in industrial environments where vibration, moisture, and chemical exposure regularly degrade wired connections.
Emerson's IO-Link Wireless based Energy Saver solution was developed with a major food and beverage manufacturer and is expected to continue revolutionizing various industries in the near future. The food and beverage sector, where compressed air is used extensively for packaging, sorting, and pneumatic controls, is a natural proving ground for this technology.
Emerson will be presenting this and additional innovations and industrial solutions at Hannover Messe 2024, 22-26 April, 2024, Hall 11, Stand C20.
Read more about AVENTICS by Emerson's Pneumatic Solutions here.
Learn more about CoreTigo's industrial wireless automation solutions here.
CoreTigo enables faster and more flexible manufacturing by providing high-performance machine digitalization, wireless connectivity and edge solutions for machine builders, system integrators and industrial equipment manufacturers. CoreTigo's products enable the design and retrofit of machines and production lines that were not possible before. These solutions increase flexibility, adaptivity and modularity, resulting in cost effectiveness, increased productivity and downtime reduction. Embraced by industrial leaders, CoreTigo's solutions are based on the IO-Link Wireless global standard, which is fit for harsh factory environments and motion control applications, providing the most reliable wireless connectivity for millions of sensors, actuators and industrial devices worldwide.