PI Chairman Joerg Freitag (front row, third from right) with attendees of meeting (image by SIA)

Joerg Freitag, chairman of PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI) visited Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on February 28th, 2012, giving a report on “ROFIsafe in Process Automation”. Yang Zhijia, and Xu Aidong, research professors from SIA’s Industrial Control Network and Systems Department attended the meeting and made detailed introductions to the R&D of SIA’s industrial fieldbus technology and fieldbus security technology respectively. An agreement was preliminarily reached between the two sides about the joint R&D and promotion of gateway technology and security technology in China.

Being the largest automation community in the world, PI is the organization responsible for the promotion of PROFIBUS and PROFINET, the two most important enabling technologies in automation today. PI hosts a large number of active Working Groups having the responsibility for developing, standardizing and maintaining PROFIBUS and PROFINET. There is also a global PI network of Test, Training and Certification services and service providers. PI operates through the PI Support Center (PISC) based in Karlsruhe, Germany, and coordinates the activities of a network of REGIONAL PI ASSOCIATIONS (RPAs) in major industrialized countries. Currently there are 27 RPAs and over 1,400 members worldwide, making PI the largest automation organization of its kind.　 (Dai Tianjiao)