Defined terms of OPC UA specifications, types and their components defined in OPC UA specifications and in this specification are highlighted with italic in this specification.

Identification device executing a scan, read or write process

Note: Such AutoID Devices are RFID Readers, barcode scanners or RTLS infrastructure.

Transponder, tag or code identifying an object

A&EAlarms & Events

AFIApplication Family Identifier

AIDCAutomatic Identification and Data Capture

ANSIAmerican National Standards Institute

AutoIDAutomatic Identification

DAData Access

DSFIDData Storage Format Identifier

EANEuropean Article Number

EPCElectronic Product Code

GNSSGlobal Navigation Satelite System

GPSGlobal Positioning System

HDAHistorical Data Access

HFHigh Frequency

HMI Human-Machine Interface

IECInternational Electrotechnical Commission

IoTInternet of Things

ISOInternational Organization for Standardization

MBMemory Bank

MIMEMultipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

NFCNear Field Communication

OCROptical Character Recognition

RFIDRadio Frequency Identification

RTLSReal Time Locating System

SCADASupervisory Control And Data Acquisition

TIDTag IDentifier

UA Unified Architecture

UHFUltra High Frequency

UIDUnique Identifier

UIIUnique Item Identifier

UTMUniversal Transverse Mercator

WLANWireless Local Network

XMLExtensible Markup Language

Node definitions are specified using tables (See Table 1)

Table 1 – Type Definition Table

Attribute

Value

Attribute name

Attribute value. If it is an optional attribute that is not set “--” will be used.

References

NodeClass

BrowseName

DataType

TypeDefinition

ModellingRule

ReferenceType name

NodeClass of the TargetNode.

BrowseName of the target Node. If the Reference is to be instantiated by the server, then the value of the target Node’s BrowseName is “--”.

Attribute of the referenced Node, only applicable for Variables.

TypeDefinition Node of the referenced Node, only applicable for Variables and Objects.

Referenced ModellingRule of the referenced Object.

Notes –

Notes referencing footnotes of the table content.

Attributes are defined by providing the Attribute name and a value, or a description of the value.

References are defined by providing the ReferenceType name, the BrowseName of the TargetNode and its NodeClass.

  • If the TargetNode is a component of the Node being defined in the table the Attributes of the composed Node are defined in the same row of the table.
  • The DataType is only specified for Variables; “[<number>]” indicates a single-dimensional array, for multi-dimensional arrays the expression is repeated for each dimension (e.g. [2][3] for a two-dimensional array). For all arrays the ArrayDimensions is set as identified by <number> values. If no <number> is set, the corresponding dimension is set to 0, indicating a dynamic size. If no number is provided at all the value is scalar and the ArrayDimensions is omitted. If no brackets are provided, it identifies a scalar DataType and the ValueRank is set to the corresponding value (see OPC 10000-3). In addition, ArrayDimensions is set to null or is omitted. If it can be Any or ScalarOrOneDimension, the value is put into “{<value>}”, so either “{Any}” or “{ScalarOrOneDimension}” and the ValueRank is set to the corresponding value (see OPC 10000-3) and the ArrayDimensions is set to null or is omitted. In Table 2 examples are given.

Table 2 – Examples of DataTypes

Notation

DataType

ValueRank

ArrayDimensions

Description

Int32

Int32

-1

omitted or NULL

A scalar Int32

Int32[]

Int32

1

omitted or {0}

Single-dimensional array of Int32 with an unknown size

Int32[][]

Int32

2

omitted or {0,0}

Two-dimensional array of Int32 with unknown sizes for both dimensions

Int32[3][]

Int32

2

{3,0}

Two-dimensional array of Int32 with a size of 3 for the first dimension and an unknown size for the second dimension

Int32[5][3]

Int32

2

{5,3}

Two-dimensional array of Int32 with a size of 5 for the first dimension and a size of 3 for the second dimension

Int32{Any}

Int32

-2

omitted or NULL

An Int32 where it is unknown if it is scalar or array with any number of dimensions

Int32{ScalarOrOneDimension}

Int32

-3

omitted or NULL

An Int32 where it is either a single-dimensional array or a scalar

If the NodeId of a DataType is provided, the symbolic name of the Node representing the DataType shall be used.

Nodes of all other NodeClasses cannot be defined in the same table; therefore only the used ReferenceType, their NodeClass and their BrowseName are specified. A reference to another section of this specificationpoints to their definition.

If no components are provided, the DataType, TypeDefinition and ModellingRule columns may be omitted and only a Comment column is introduced to point to the Node definition.

Components of Nodes can be complex, i.e. containing components by themselves. The TypeDefinition, NodeClass, DataType and ModellingRule can be derived from the type definitions, and the symbolic name can be created as defined in 3.4.2.1. Therefore those containing components are not explicitly specified; they are implicitly specified by the type definitions.

The NodeIds of all Nodes described in this specification are only symbolic names. Annex A defines the actual NodeIds.

The symbolic name of each Node defined in this specificationis its BrowseName, or, when it is part of another Node, the BrowseName of the other Node, a “.”, and the BrowseName of itself. In this case “part of” means that the whole has a HasProperty or HasComponent Reference to its part. Since all Nodes not being part of another Node have a unique name in this specification, the symbolic name is unique.

The NamespaceUri for all NodeIds defined in this document is defined in Annex A. The NamespaceIndex for this NamespaceUri is vendor-specific and depends on the position of the NamespaceUri in the server namespace table.

Note: This specification does not only define concrete Nodes, but also requires that some Nodes have to be generated, for example one for each AutoID Device represented by the Server. The NodeIds of those Nodes are server-specific, including the Namespace. But the NamespaceIndex of those Nodes cannot be the NamespaceIndex used for the Nodes defined by this specification, because they are not defined by this specification but generated by the Server.

The text part of the BrowseNames for all Nodes defined in this specification is specified in the tables defining the Nodes. The NamespaceIndex for all BrowseNames defined in this specification is server specific and depends on the position of the namespace URI defined in this specification in the server namespace table.

If the BrowseName is not defined by this specification, a namespace index prefix like ‘0:EngineeringUnits’ is added to the BrowseName. This is typically necessary if a Property of another specification is overwritten or used in the OPC UA types defined in this specification. Table 87 provides a list of namespaces used in this specification.

The Attributes of Nodes, their DataTypes and descriptions are defined in OPC 10000-3. Attributes not marked as optional are mandatory and shall be provided by a Server. The following tables define if the Attribute value is defined by this specification or if they vendor specific.

For all Nodes specified in this specification, the Attributes named in Table 3 shall be set as specified in the table.

Table 3 – Common Node Attributes

Attribute

Value

DisplayName

The DisplayName is a LocalizedText. Each server shall provide the DisplayName identical to the BrowseName of the Node for the LocaleId “en”. Whether the server provides translated names for other LocaleIds is vendor specific.

Description

Optionally a vendor specific description is provided

NodeClass

Shall reflect the NodeClass of the Node

NodeId

The NodeId is described by BrowseNames as defined in 3.4.2.1 and defined in Annex A.

WriteMask

Optionally the WriteMask Attribute can be provided. If the WriteMask Attribute is provided, it shall set all Attributes to not writeable that are not said to be vendor-specific like Description, EventNotifier or DisplayName with a LocaleId other than ‘en’. For example, the Description Attribute may be set to writeable since a Server may provide a server-specific description for the Node. The Attributes NodeId, BrowseName and NodeClass and DataType shall not be writeable, because they are defined for each Node in this specification.

The WriteMask Attribute does not take any user access rights into account, that is, although an Attribute is writeable this may be restricted to a certain user / user group.

UserWriteMask

Optionally the UserWriteMask Attribute can be provided. It takes the user access rights for the Session user into account.

The same rules as for the WriteMask Attribute apply.

For all Objects specified in this specification, the Attributes named in Table 4 shall be set as specified in the table. The definitions for the Attributes can be found in OPC 10000-3.

Table 4 – Common Object Attributes

Attribute

Value

EventNotifier

Indicates whether the Node can be used to subscribe to Events or not. The value of the Attribute is vendor specific.

For all Variables specified in this specification, the Attributes named in Table 5 shall be set as specified in the table. The definitions for the Attributes can be found in OPC 10000-3.

Table 5 – Common Variable Attributes

Attribute

Value

MinimumSamplingInterval

Optionally, a vendor-specific minimum sampling interval is provided

AccessLevel

The access level for Variables used for type definitions is vendor-specific, for all other Variables defined in this specification, the access level shall allow a current read; other settings are vendor specific.

UserAccessLevel

The value for the UserAccessLevel Attribute is vendor-specific. It is assumed that all Variables can be accessed by at least one user.

Value

For Variables used as InstanceDeclarations, the value is vendor-specific; otherwise it shall represent the value described in the text.

ArrayDimensions

If the ValueRank does not identify an array of a specific dimension (i.e. ValueRank <= 0) the ArrayDimensions can either be set to null or the Attribute is missing. This behaviour is vendor-specific.

If the ValueRank specifies an array of a specific dimension (i.e. ValueRank > 0) then the ArrayDimensions Attribute shall be specified in the table defining the Variable.

The concrete array length is contained in the delivered Value. Therefore this information is only relevant for write access to the Variable Value if the array has a fixed length.

For all VariableTypes specified in this specification, the Attributes named in Table 6 shall be set as specified in the table. The definitions for the Attributes can be found in OPC 10000-3.

Table 6 – Common VariableType Attributes

Attributes

Value

Value

Optionally a vendor-specific default value can be provided

ArrayDimensions

If the ValueRank does not identify an array of a specific dimension (i.e. ValueRank <= 0) the ArrayDimensions can either be set to null or the Attribute is missing. This behaviour is vendor-specific.

If the ValueRank specifies an array of a specific dimension (i.e. ValueRank > 0) then the ArrayDimensions Attribute shall be specified in the table defining the VariableType.

The concrete array length is contained in the delivered Value. Therefore this information is only relevant for write access to the VariableType Value if the array has a fixed length.