OPC UA TSN Can Replace The Classic Fieldbus In IIoT Applications

OPC UA is the solution to one of the greatest challenges of modern production concepts. Regardless of whether we call it Industry 4.0, IIoT or Smart Factory, the production of the future is only possible if all components of a production plant communicate via a uniform network. This ranges from sensors to ERP and control systems. Only when IT and OT are merged does the necessary transparency of the data arise, which is necessary for IIoT applications.

There are already numerous communication protocols, why should another be introduced?

That is exactly the point: there are too many protocols. Let's take a look at a typical machine shop. There are machines from numerous manufacturers, who in turn use different control systems with different fieldbuses or industrial Ethernet networks. Even if these machines work separately from each other, this heterogeneity is associated with great effort in commissioning and maintenance. If the individual components are to communicate closely with each other, this is virtually impossible in this way. Numerous gateways and interfaces have to be programmed and maintained. This requires money, time and specialist staff. At the latest when response times in real time are necessary, for example to synchronize a robot and an injection molding machine, this cannot be implemented.

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There are enough real-time protocols, why does it have to be OPC UA?

There are mutliple reasons for this. On the one hand, OPC UA is an independent and recognized standard that connects the production world and the IT world. On the other hand, it provides security functions that allow data to be transmitted reliably and securely. And then there is a very unique selling point: OPC UA not only transmits data, but information.

What does that mean?

In OPC UA, a temperature value is not just a bare number, but an information package including information such as the unit used or target limits. The protocol is therefore predestined for communication between different systems. Interfaces that define how which values ​​or variables should be interpreted are superfluous. In addition, the so-called methods in OPC UA enable machine or system parts to call up certain functions in other machine or system parts. This makes networked production easy to implement.

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