26-06-2013

Emerson announces world’s first fully integrated wireless guided wave radar level transmitter

Emerson Process Management announces the industry’s first integrated wireless Guided Wave Radar (GWR) transmitter for continuous level and interface monitoring. The Rosemount® 3308 wireless GWR transmitter has been introduced to meet the need for accurate level monitoring in remote or difficult to reach locations where installing new cabling would be costly or impractical.

GWR transmitters are widely used for a broad range of measurement and control applications. These include process level measurement in vessels and storage tanks in refineries, oil fields, offshore platforms, chemical and industrial plants. For example, in well production applications, GWR transmitters are used to measure the level in tanks used for the storage of production, and the delivery water and injection chemicals. Accurate and reliable level instrumentation helps avoid the risk of oil spills that impact the environment and require expensive labor and equipment to clean up.

Emerson’s Smart Wireless technology significantly reduces installation and configuration time. Since there is no need for cabling, trenching, conduit runs and cable trays, costs are typically reduced by 30 percent or more compared with a wired solution. Once a wireless network has been established, any WirelessHART™ enabled device can join the network and take advantage of the benefits of an existing Smart Wireless infrastructure. This makes it easy to make changes or move devices around to meet specific requests.

The Rosemount 3308 Wireless GWR transmitter features enhanced configuration and diagnostics. It provides an easy and cost effective way to add visibility across a wide range of industries and applications, ensuring plant and operator safety and improving process efficiency. The transfer of unique and proven solutions from the wired Rosemount 3300 and 5300 Series GWRs has made long battery life possible without compromising measurement reliability. Device Dashboards help to reduce errors by providing a step-by-step configuration process.

Based on GWR technology, the Rosemount 3308 is a top mounted device for direct level and interface measurement of liquids. It is virtually unaffected by changing process conditions such as density, conductivity, temperature and pressure, and because it does not have moving parts, no calibration is required and maintenance is minimised. A wide range of process connections, probe styles, and accessories ensure application flexibility.

WirelessHART devices are typically installed and operating in just a few hours – reliably transmitting data via a wireless gateway to a control system or data historian. Status information and device diagnostics are easily accessible from the control room, reducing maintenance requirements and enhancing operator safety by eliminating unnecessary field trips.

Emerson’s Smart Wireless technology is based on the IEC 62591 WirelessHART standard. Real-time plant data acquired wirelessly can be used to optimise operations, improve worker and plant safety, and reduce emissions and other environmental impacts. Clocking more than 1 billion total hours of wireless operations across 10,000 systems, Emerson’s Smart Wireless technology has proven its reliability, enabled cost savings and significantly reduced installation time for tens of thousands of systems worldwide.