Despite the standards battle between WirelessHART and ISA100.11a, the industrial WSN market is accelerating. ON World’s recently completed survey found that there are three times as many WirelessHART users today compared with a previous survey completed in Q1 2010.

San Diego, CA June 27, 2012— The migration to standards based wireless sensor networking (WSN) is one of the biggest technology developments for industrial automation, according to a recently completed survey by global technology research firm, ON World. 

“Users of industrial wireless sensing and control have been demanding standards but the hope of convergence between WirelessHART and ISA100.11a is in doubt,” says Mareca Hatler, ON World’s research director.  “Despite this standards confusion and a brutal economy, the industrial WSN market has doubled over the last two years.”

In collaboration with the International Society of Automation (ISA), HART Communication Foundation (HCF) and the Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance (WINA), ON World completed one of its largest studies on WSN with 216 industrial automation vendors, end users and professionals from five geographic regions.  A few examples include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhilips, DuPont, Endress+Hauser, Emerson, Hitachi, Halliburton, Honeywell, OleumTech, Petrobras, Rio Tinto Alcan, Saudi Aramco, Schneider Electric, Toshiba, Williams and Yokogawa.

Some of the survey highlights include the following:

• Over half (57%) of the end user respondents are using or pilot testing WSN systems.
• 20% of the end users have deployed more than 100 wireless field devices.
• 75% of current WSN adopters are using a wireless mesh protocol for at least some of their wireless field devices.
• WirelessHART is used by 39% of the surveyed end users up from 13% in
  ON World’s previous survey completed in Q1 2010.
• Preferences for wireless mesh standards continue to diverge with end users equally preferring either WirelessHART or a hybrid strategy that includes both WirelessHART and ISA100.11a. 
• End users are less concerned about data reliability today with only 46% indicating that this is an adoption inhibitor compared with 71% in our previous 2010 survey.

ON World’s recently published report, “Industrial WSN Global Survey 2012,” presents the survey findings in 52 pages, 85 figures and 56 PowerPoint slides.  The data has been analyzed and presented using several filters such as all respondents, end users (e.g. manufacturers, oil & gas, etc.), WSN adopters, industry, and by WSN technology (WirelessHART, ISA100.11a, ZigBee, 802.15.4, WiFi and Other RF).

More information and a free executive summary is available from: http://www.onworld.com/smartindustries/2012survey/

About ON World:
ON World provides global business intelligence on smart technology markets. Our research reports and information services are sold to Fortune 1000 companies, startups and investors worldwide. http://www.onworld.com

Media contact:
Mary Purvis
e: purvis at onworld.com
ph: 858-259-2397

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