The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is growing at a rapid pace. The factory of the future requires high data streams and the industrial sector needs connectivity which adapts itself to increasingly growing demands. 

Over the years have been added more smart devices, more bandwidth, more determinism, and thus more precision and sophistication to plants. All intelligent equipment uses sensors and actuators and they can be connected over one common network.

Proprietary and legacy fieldbus systems, including Profibus, AS-Interface, Modbus, CANOpen, DeviceNet, CC-Link, and IO-Link are viewed by many as too bulky or resource-intensive for optimum industrial process implementations.

Now, we are on the cusp of reversing that entropy. Two wires, a single twisted pair, are enough. With Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) technology in the Industrial Field, together with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) capability, industry is poised for a leap forward in precision and productivity. 

Advanced automotive electronic systems require faster communication networks as contemporary vehicles share an enormous amount of real-time data, firmware and software between electronic control units (ECUs). This led to Single Pair Ethernet being developed for the automotive environment. Vehicle harnessing systems and in-vehicle networks have greatly benefited from the work that key automotive engineering teams did in partnership with their cable and connector partners. 

In 2016, the IEEE 802.3bp standard 1000BASE-T1 for higher data rates and the SPE standard IEEE 802.3bu for Power over Data Lines (PoDL) of Single Balanced Twisted-Pair Ethernet were published. This was a watershed moment in SPE’s evolution and the 4th industrial revolution can now be realised with the two-wire approach. A group of companies and engineers took up the task of understanding everything that industrial fieldbus technologies do today and took up the task of building a unified Ethernet alternative.

With the new SPE technology, it is possible to connect devices over 1000m at 10 Megabits/s throughput. Any of the fieldbus technologies can be replaced. SPE can operate in hazardous environments, because remote powering is possible. Industrial and process networks gain lower electromagnetic interference (EMI), lower cost, reduced cabling weight, and higher bandwidth. 

The PI International Organization (Germany) and ODVA (US) have begun to adopt the IEC single pair Ethernet cable and connector standards and the various IEEE 802.3 SPE protocols. Belden is focussing on engineering for plug and play installation and repair, and fast-connection technology. Single pair Ethernet components as switches, IO modules, connectors, splitters, and cables are being developed by Belden for future IIoT requirements.

Harting has also recognised the requirements of the factory of the future, and driven Ethernet connectivity for networks. Fast Ethernet (10/100Mbps) requires cabling with two wire pairs and Gigabit Ethernet requires four wire pairs. The new Single Pair Ethernet is pushing technology into the market that can transmit these TCP/IP-based data streams via just one pair of wires.

Since the beginning of the year, an ISO/IEC international selection process has been in progress for cabling and the selection of standardised SPE mating faces, involving more than 20 national expert committees. Because of this selection, two mating faces have prevailed: for building wiring, the mating face according to IEC 63171-1, based on the proposal by CommScope; for industrial and industry applications, the mating face is that of IEC 63171-6, based on the proposal by Harting.

The core element of the new Harting T1 industrial connector family is an always-uniform SPE mating face that is used for all versions, from IP20 up to IP65/67. The company has aligned its connector design accordingly and can achieve both 1GBit/s for shorter distances and 10Mbit/s for long distances with a mutually compatible mating face.