The OPC Foundation has launched an initiative to further enable OPC UA adoption by extending standardization and harmonization activities for OPC UA including TSN-enabled Ethernet networks.
The OPC Foundation has launched an initiative to further enable OPC UA adoption by extending standardization and harmonization activities for OPC UA. The goal of the initiative is an open approach to implement OPC UA including time-sensitive networking (TSN) and associated application profiles. The OPC Foundation will provide vendor independent end-to-end interoperability into field level devices for all relevant industry automation use-cases.
A set of working groups will identify, manage, and standardize the topics focused on industrial automation including:
- Harmonization and standardization of application profiles such as input/output (I/O), motion control, safety, and system redundancy
- Standardization of OPC UA information models for field level devices in offline such as device description and online diagnostics
- Mapping of OPC UA application profiles related to real-time operations on ethernet networks including TSN
- Definition of certification procedures.
The groups will align with the TSN Profile for Industrial Automation (TSN-IA-Profile), which will be standardized by the IEC/IEEE 60802 group to ensure a single converged TSN network approach is maintained. This will allow OPC UA to share one common multi-vendor TSN network infrastructure together with other applications.
Stefan Hoppe, president of the OPC Foundation, said: “The benefit of membership in the OPC Foundation allows companies to actively engage and influence the direction of the OPC Foundation and includes early access to the specifications and technology. This initiative will grow OPC UA into new markets and I highly encourage all OPC Foundation members to contact the OPC Foundation to participate.”
OPC Founation
– Edited from an OPC Foundation press release by CFE Media.
