The OPC Foundation and the LoRa Alliance have announced a new collaboration to develop a standardized mapping between LoRaWAN and OPC UA, creating a powerful bridge between low-power wireless sensing and industrial digitalization.
Read the full press release here https://opcfoundation.org/news/press-releases/opc-foundation-and-lora-alliance-launch-joint-activities-to-map-lorawan-to-opc-ua/
The joint working group, officially launched on May 13th, 2026, will define how data and information models originating from LoRaWAN-based devices and systems can be represented within OPC UA environments. The initiative addresses a growing need across industry: connecting large numbers of distributed sensors and remote assets to enterprise systems, digital twins, analytics platforms, and AI applications without losing interoperability or semantic context.
Bringing Together Two Complementary Technologies
LoRaWAN and OPC UA operate at different layers of the digital ecosystem but are highly complementary.
- LoRaWAN has become a leading technology for low-power, long-range wireless communication, enabling battery-powered sensors to operate for years while transmitting data across large industrial sites. Typical applications include remote monitoring, metering, environmental sensing, asset condition monitoring, and infrastructure management.
- OPC UA, meanwhile, has evolved far beyond connectivity. Today, it serves as the foundation for industrial digitalization, providing secure communication, semantic information modeling, and standardized interoperability across operational technology (OT), information technology (IT), cloud platforms, digital twins, and industrial AI applications.
The new collaboration combines the strengths of both technologies: efficient wireless data acquisition at the edge and standardized information integration throughout the enterprise.
Practical example form Industry: From Sensors to Digital Twins
A practical example of this integration was presented by Michael Heider of WIKA in his “LoRaWAN to OPC UA – Reference Architecture and Case Study” presentation.
See recording here https://youtu.be/8Q9Tg9-PzSs
Download PDF here Presentations – OPC Foundation
The work demonstrates how LoRaWAN sensor networks can be seamlessly integrated into OPC UA-based architectures, enabling industrial users to transform raw sensor data into structured, interoperable information models.
The architecture illustrates how data collected from LoRaWAN devices is transmitted through gateways and network servers, processed by application servers, and then mapped into OPC UA information models. Once represented in OPC UA, the data becomes available to enterprise applications, analytics platforms, cloud systems, and digital twins using standardized interfaces.
This approach allows organizations to move beyond simple data collection and create interoperable digital ecosystems where information can be securely shared and reused across multiple applications and stakeholders.
Accelerating the Future of Industrial IoT
The collaboration between the OPC Foundation and the LoRa Alliance reflects a broader trend in industrial digitalization: the convergence of communication technologies and interoperable information models.
Organizations increasingly require solutions that not only connect devices but also provide context-rich information that can be shared across operational, enterprise, and cloud environments. By creating a standardized mapping between LoRaWAN and OPC UA, the joint working group aims to simplify integration efforts, reduce implementation costs, and accelerate adoption across industrial automation, smart infrastructure, energy, building systems, and environmental monitoring.
As OPC UA continues its evolution from a communication standard to the foundation for industrial digitalization, and LoRaWAN expands its role as a leading LPWAN technology, this collaboration represents an important step toward a more connected, interoperable, and intelligent industrial future.
In case you are interested to join, please contact either the OPC Foundation or the LoRa Alliance office.