Outlook on Flowmeters for the Future

The innovation from mechanical flow meters to electronic technology flow meters is one of the most important development trends in flow meters. Target flow meters, electromagnetic flow meters, ultrasonic flow meters, vortex flow meters, and V-cone flow meters (orifice flow meters) operate using electrical principles, thereby avoiding the need for replacement of moving parts during the operation of mechanical flow meters. At the same time, the self diagnosis function has been introduced into flow meters, making flow meters not only simple measurement tools, but also more for system maintenance purposes, such as air pipeline detection and self inspection. Moreover, by combining advanced communication technology with electronic flow meters, control personnel can remotely and in real-time obtain flow data and historical data from the production site.
According to Frost&Sullivan's research, approximately 89.0% of flow meters worldwide currently use the mAHART communication protocol, as flow meters using the mAHART communication protocol have lower installation difficulty and operational requirements than those using the fieldbus protocol, and introducing a fieldbus system is also a significant cost for users. However, with the continuous improvement of automation level by industry users, they hope to obtain more information from traffic measurement besides traffic data, such as diagnostic information and status detection, which rely on fieldbus support for data transmission. Moreover, manufacturers such as Siemens and Emmer are actively promoting flow measurement technology based on fieldbus protocols. I believe that this will undoubtedly promote the application prospects of fieldbus protocol flow meters in various industries.
In addition, wireless technology flow meters are gradually being accepted by users, and fluid measurement in harsh environments is a good application space for wireless technology. However, it will take some time for users to fully accept and popularize wireless technology flow meters.