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OPC UA “REST” Subgroup Launched

    The REST group, as a sub-group of the OPC Foundation UA Working Group, will discuss use-cases for the integration of OPC UA via REST and propose potential extensions for the OPC UA specification. It is a special-purpose sub-group meant for IT (especially REST) experts and participants who work in Edge and Cloud computing.

    Energy Efficiency – Building a Unified Model with OPC UA

      Dr. Karl-Heinz Niemann of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany, is running a project called, “Development of energy management interfaces for IoT technologies” (IoT_EnRG). The project recognized, very early on, that OPC UA was critical to harmonize and model energy consumption data.

      FLC / FX Corner – September 2022

        The Field Level Communications (FLC) Initiative has been busy: collaboration with FieldComm Group for instrumentation devices; archived webinars available to watch; controller-to-device (C2D) kickoff; OPC UA Safety technical paper published, and more.

        Achieving Interoperability for Process Automation Systems

          What is the Open Process Automation Standard (O-PAS) and why is it a future requirement for industries? What role does OPC UA play in the O-PAS Connectivity Framework? Learn more and get all of your burning questions answered.

          Field Level Communications (FLC) Corner – March 2022

            Three years after its launch, the OPC Foundation’s Field Level Communications (FLC) Initiative is preparing for the transition from the first UAFX specification version with the focus on Controller-to-Controller (C2C) to the second UAFX specification version which is extending the UAFX concepts to also cover the use-cases Controller-to-Devices (C2D) and Device-to-Device (D2D).

            OPC UA, MQTT, and Information Interoperability

              In earlier times, OPC learned a hard lesson that tying a spec to a particular wire protocol leads to obsolescence as technologies evolve. This is why OPC UA has a layered architecture, which makes it possible to create mappings for any number of transports like JSON HTTP or UA TCP for Client/Server models and MQTT or UA UDP for Pub/Sub models.

              OPC UA Field Level Communications (FLC) News

                Three years after its launch, the OPC Foundation’s Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative has completed the OPC UA FX (Field eXchange) specifications. In addition, a multi-vendor demo with controllers and network infrastructure components from 20 companies has been realized.

                FLC Corner – September 2021

                  More than 320 experts from over 60 OPC Foundation member companies have been contributing to the OPC UA FX (Field eXchange) specifications which extend the OPC UA framework down to the field-level. The first public specification for Controller-to-Controller is expected by end of 2021 with a demo being shown at SPS in November.

                  Congratulations to the Ethernet-APL Project

                    The OPC Foundation congratulates the Ethernet-APL Project on the announcement of their achievement of a critically important milestone of cross-vendor utilization of their standard. We have joined this initiative because we strongly believe that the combination of OPC UA over APL will be a key technology for decades to come.

                    Leveraging OPC UA to Help Meet Site Security Requirements

                      Due to the criticality of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and the desire to make process and business information available to anyone, anywhere, and at any time, the information that is exchanged must meet the security requirements of the site. The OPC UA standards are designed to meet these security requirements while maintaining the level of flexibility and control that site administrators expect.

                      OPC UA Modelling Best Practices

                        This whitepaper is intended to provide guidelines and best practices for developing OPC UA based information models. It is not a formal specification, but recommends ways to create OPC UA information models that eventually lead to a better product.

                        OPC Foundation Joins APL Project Group

                          The OPC Foundation will support the development and promotion of an Advanced Physical Layer (APL) for industrial Ethernet, suitable for use in demanding applications and hazardous locations in the process industry.

                          Collaborations: umati // EUROMAP // PROFINET

                            Three new updates are available on the collaborations front. First, the VDMA and VDW have joined forces to promote the use and dissemination of OPC UA standards under the umati label. Second, the EUROMAP Companion Spec for plastics and rubber machines based on OPC UA is released. Third, an OPC UA Companion Spec for PROFINET is released.

                            FLC Corner – June 2020

                              The OPC Foundation, ODVA, and Sercos International are pleased to announce a collaboration to develop a new generation of a best-in-class motion technology for industry: OPC UA Motion. A new Working Group is tasked with specifying the motion facet of Field Level Communications (FLC) to enable inter-vendor operation for motion automation.