PROFINET is an Ethernet-based networking solution for automation. It is similar to PROFIBUS in that it enables distributed IO control from a PLC. It also utilizes similar or near identical engineering, operations and maintenance techniques and it can support similar applications-specific profiles such as Functional Safety and Motion Control. A new project for Active Energy Management aimed at using PROFINET to help reduce industrial power consumption has recently been launched.
PROFINET has a much broader reach than PROFIBUS and can enable better networking plant-wide. It integrates readily with IT infrastructures and with the Internet. It embraces PROFIBUS and competing fieldbuses so that existing investments in skills and equipment can be retained during any migration to an Ethernet-based future.
By the end of 2009 2.1 million nodes were installed.
