AS-Interface - Yellow Cable, Gold Standard


By Peter Cheetham, Chairman AS-i Expert Alliance UK  

cable

Take a typical machine with a variety of switches, proximity detectors, indicators, air actuators and a host of other actuators and sensors positioned not just in or on panels but all the way down the machine’s length and all requiring their own individual wiring. Now imagine how much simpler, quicker and less error prone installation would be if all that wiring could be replaced with just one two-core cable which simply goes around the machine and all those devices just clip onto it. You’ve just imagined the basic concept of a fieldbus. Now suppose that the system is so designed that the cable does not need terminators and the technical specification is such that you can run all the safety elements of the machine (for example, emergency stops, guard switches, light curtains) on the SAME cable at the SAME time as all the other non-safety actuators and sensors1. Expand the range of actuators and sensors to cover analogue as well and you have the Actuator and Sensor interface system known as AS-interface, or AS-i as it is commonly called.

AS-i has actually been around for over ten years but now, with well over ten million devices in the field, it is a mature, well-proven technology used in a very wide variety of industry sectors. It started out as a simple intelligent cabling system to replace and simplify the often large amount of point-to-point wiring needed in connecting binary (on/off) devices such as switches and lights. he system has then been expanded to include such things as safety devices and analogue measurements. Nevertheless, it has remained true to its roots and, although new versions are being brought out regularly (it is currently up to version 3.0), any new version of AS-i is always guaranteed to be fully backwards compatible with any older versions. So users are never forced to throw away perfectly good older devices.

 


AS-I panel SlavesAS-Interface Benefits

Minimum wiring and cost savings – one instead of one thousand cables

Quickly assembled, easy to maintain – thanks to piercing technology

Unlimited freedom without control cabinets – thanks to the I/O module system

Integrated safety technology: ASIsafe – enables direct integration of fail-safe components