July/August 2022, Industrial Ethernet Book

Page 29

Industrial Edge

OPC UA for the Field Level: UAFX multi-vendor demo SOURCE: OPC FOUNDATION

OPC UA is establishing itself as an industrial interoperability standard not only for the vertical integration from the control level to the edge or up to the cloud, but also as an interface for exchanging process data between controllers regardless of which protocol communicates with underlying field devices.

The OPC UA FX Multi-Vendor Demo shows the interaction of controllers and network infrastructure components from different vendors to exchange process data at the field level. THE FIELD LEVEL COMMUNICATIONS (FLC) initiative of the OPC Foundation was launched to establish OPC UA as a uniform, consistent and vendor-independent industrial interoperability solution also at the field level. To this end, extensions to the OPC UA framework are being specified that standardize the semantics and behavior of controllers and field devices from different manufacturers, both for discrete manufacturing and for the process industry. Three and a half years after its launch, the initiative has completed the final release candidate of the first specification version,

which is being named OPC UA Field eXchange (FX). This first specification has the focus on cross-vendor controller-to-controller use cases that support flexible and reconfigurable processing and manufacturing operations. A multi-vendor demo was created to test the interaction of UAFX controller prototypes that exchange process data on the basis of OPC UA and the OPC UA FX extensions.

Application example

To illustrate the application of OPC UA FX an example is given in the following: A machine

operator buys two identical machine tools from manufacturer 1 and two identical robots from manufacturer 2 to automate the loading and unloading of the machine tools. To control and synchronize the processes between the machine tool and the robot, the respective controllers must exchange defined process data with each other. Neither the machine tool nor the robot changes its function or operation after installation, but there is no pre-planning of which machine will be connected to which robot, and possibly the network identification of the different controllers is not defined in advance.

OPC UA FX Specifications (Parts 80-84) 08.202 2

i n d u str i a l e th e r n e t b o o k

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New Products

11min
pages 66-70

Effective control systems key to nationwide equipment network

13min
pages 59-62

CC-Link IE network keeps power on track at Euston Station

4min
pages 63-64

Simplified development for real-time Industrial Edge systems

3min
page 65

Powerful, open control automation for “Baumkuchen 4.0” bakery

8min
pages 56-58

OPC UA for the Field Level: UA FX multi-vendor demo

9min
pages 29-33

Mapping CIP to OPC UA: companion specification update

14min
pages 38-43

Commissioning cabling infrastructure for OT networks

17min
pages 46-49

Single Common Conformance Test Plan: IEC/IEEE 60802 TSN

4min
page 37

EtherNet/IP focus on digitization and process applications

11min
pages 34-36

Process applications framework using CIP technologies

23min
pages 50-55

12 time-tested principles for architecting EtherNet/IP systems

7min
pages 44-45

How Wi-Fi 6/6E enables Industry 4.0

5min
pages 27-28

The price of network transparency

2min
page 14

Intelligence at the Edge: boost productivity and improve costs

9min
pages 20-21

Getting IIoT networks ready for the future

5min
pages 24-25

Edge computing for easily implementing IoT applications

6min
pages 17-19

Industrial Edge ecosystem offers connectivity solutions

5min
pages 15-16

Industry news

6min
pages 4-5

Standardising data collection in breweries

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5 ways smart factory analytics bridge data & communication silos

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