An OPC UA example server reflects the following UA node tree:

The namespace for ns=1 is "http://example.industrial.motor.com/ua". A corresponding Thing Description can be generated for the Object NodeId "ns=1;s=IndustrialMotor" (IndustrialMotor):

The ontology of the OPC UA binding will allow mapping features that can be used also in Thing Description that are not directly related to a OPC UA binding.

The example below shows a Thing Description of a Modbus-based energy meter that offers 3 voltages of each phase as properties with the name VoltageL1-N, VoltageL2-N, and VoltageL3-N. Each property uses the uav:mapToType and uav:mapByFieldPath terms to make clear, that the corresponding property can be mapped to a AcPeDataType from the http://opcfoundation.org/UA/PNEM/ namespace. If an OPC UA server uses this namespace and has a node of this type, as shown on the right, then a processor can read the properties from the Modbus device and assign the runtime value to the OPC UA model.

Figure 6 - Example usage of the data model mapping

Hint: The uav:mapToNodeId can also be used to specify the exact target node to which the runtime data should be mapped.