OPC UA FX IOP at Beckhoff Automation in Berlin (Germany)
From February 16 to 19, 2026, Beckhoff Automation welcomed leading automation and technology providers to its Berlin office for participating in the OPC UA FX Prototyping Interoperability (IOP) event. The four-day session marked another important milestone in advancing interoperable, real-time industrial communication between controllers based on OPC UA FX. During the UAFX IOP, the team also verified AML-based offline description exchange. This validation confirms seamless engineering data exchange capabilities — a key enabler for efficient configuration and streamlined commissioning workflows. Beyond functional verification of existing OPC UA FX prototypes, the event focused on defining next steps for TSN-based real-time communication. The group aligned on technical milestones and integration strategies to accelerate TSN prototyping and ensure deterministic, vendor-independent communication architectures.
Field Conference at Hannover Fair:
Open, Secure, Connected: OPC UA Shaping Process Automation
At Hannover Fair, industry leaders, technology experts, and automation professionals come together to explore how OPC UA is transforming the future of process automation. As digitalization accelerates across industries, open and secure communication standards are essential to enable interoperability, scalability, and resilient operations.
This conference will highlight how OPC UA provides a vendor-neutral, secure, and future-proof framework for seamless data exchange — from field level to cloud — empowering organizations to build truly connected and intelligent production environments.
Special focus will be placed on OPC UA FX (Field eXchange) and O-PAS, including the alignment between the OPC Foundation’s Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative and the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF), and how these efforts together are driving interoperable, standards-based architectures for the process industries.
Join us to discover practical insights, real-world implementations, and forward-looking strategies that are shaping the next generation of process automation.
https://opcfoundation.org/event-detail/field/
UAFX Specification Release Candidate V1.00.04 completed
The OPC Foundation continues the staged publication of the UAFX 1.00 series with Release Candidate V1.00.04, introducing OPC 10000-81 (UA Specification Part 81 – UAFX Connecting Devices and Information Model) and OPC 10000-84 (UA Specification Part 84 – UAFX Profiles). Part 81 delivers functional enhancements alongside editorial clarifications, including extensions to the ConnectionManager and ConnectionConfigurationSets, added GDS address support, more flexible referencing from ConnectionEndpoint to DataSet Readers and Writers, improved publishing interval configuration, and clarified requirements for Events and LogObject contents. These updates further strengthen configuration flexibility and consistency in UAFX connection handling. Part 84 introduces new ConformanceUnits reflecting the functionality added in Part 81 and refines Descriptor content ConformanceUnits.
This release marks another important milestone toward completing the UAFX 1.00 specification series, enhancing interoperability, clarifying requirements, and expanding conformance coverage.
Call for Participation – OPC UA FX C2C Workflow Demo
The OPC Foundation (OPCF) invites all control suppliers and system integrators to participate in a live demonstration of the UAFX Controller-to-Controller (C2C) Engineering Workflow and to confirm technical readiness. This demonstration will show how controllers can be easily connected with each other, while establishing trusted, certificate-based secure communication. Participants will demonstrate a realistic end-to-end workflow using real PLC hardware and engineering tools, including descriptor export/import, FunctionalEntity modeling, and deployment on both controllers. A key focus will be secure onboarding via Global Discovery Server (GDS), certificate provisioning, trust establishment, and role-based access control. Secure OPC UA Client/Server and PubSub communication will be shown live, including encrypted and/or signed data exchange.
A preparation workshop will align the demo script, security setup, and logistics.
Contact for interested OPCF members:
Peter Lutz, Director FLC, peter.lutz@opcfoundation.org
Call for Participation – OPC UA FX C2D Prototyping and Multi-Vendor Demo
The OPC Foundation (OPCF) invites all OPCF members to actively participate in the OPC UA FX prototyping and support a new multi-vendor demonstration that will showcase the interoperability and scalability of OPC UA FX. The demo will feature a wide range of OPC UA FX controller and device prototypes – including motion devices, remote I/Os, field instruments and gateways to fieldbuses – working seamlessly together with OPC UA FX controllers and OPC UA FX edge gateways. This collaborative showcase will debut at the SPS trade fair in Nuremberg/Germany in November 2026, providing the community with a unique opportunity to highlight progress and strengthen engagement in shaping the future of industrial communication.
Contact for interested OPCF members:
Peter Lutz, Director FLC, peter.lutz@opcfoundation.org