Micro Motion Inc. is a global company manufacturing Coriolis flowmeters and density measurement devices for a variety of industries including the food & beverage, oil & gas and chemical industries. A Coriolis flowmeter is a device that measures the mass flow rate of a fluid without employing moving parts that tend to drift or fail over time.

Connecting to EtherNet/IP

With over 1,000,000 devices installed worldwide, Micro Motion Coriolis devices are best-in-class for reliability, repeatability and high-performance. 

Aware of increasing demand for EtherNet/IP connectivity and the value that it could bring to customers, Micro Motion decided that having an Ethernet solution to use in conjunction with their Coriolis meters was a necessity.

However, Micro Motion had limited experience with EtherNet/IP technology development that would ensure an optimized product for their customers. To help bring a solution to the market quickly, Micro Motion sought out the help of industrial networking and communication experts. 

The solution

“When we first were looking at EtherNet/IP we considered a number of different technology solutions ranging from integration of chip sets into our existing transmitter all the way to a completely outsourced product. As we thought about how to speed up time to market in our EtherNet/IP solution, we knew that HMS would be a great resource to help us understand the relative risks and benefits of incorporating third-party technology versus developing the solution entirely ourselves,” said Dave Kapolnek, Product Marketing Director at Micro Motion. 

“In the end, we decided to go with a hybrid solution that utilized Anybus EtherNet/IP technology but in a product that was customized for our specific application and customers.” 

 

Micro Motion EtherNet/IP Transmitter.

The Micro Motion® EtherNet/IP™ Module acts as a Modbus RTU Master to the flowmeter and collects data from the meter. The module makes the data available for Ethernet/IP connectivity to a Rockwell / Allen Bradley PLC, and it also makes it available through the web interface.