Introduction

The OPC 40100-2 specifications contain OPC UA Companion Specifications of several industry sectors and are developed by members of VDMA and/or the OPC Foundation. OPC UA is a machine to machine communication technology to transmit characteristics of products (e.g. manufacturer name, device type or components) and process data (e.g. temperatures, pressures or feed rates). To enable vendor unspecific interoperability the description of product characteristics and process data must be standardized utilizing technical specifications, the OPC UA companion specifications.

Associations

VDMA Robotics + Automation

The VDMA represents around 3300 German and European companies in the mechanical engineering industry. The industry represents innovation, export orientation, medium-sized companies and employs around four million people in Europe, more than one million of them in Germany.

The Robotics + Automation Association as part of VDMA represents one of the most dynamic and fastest growing sectors of the machinery industry and consists of the three groups Robotics, Machine Vision, and Integrated Assembly Solutions. The German Robotics + Automation sector, which reached close to €15 billion in turnover in 2019, is a pacemaker for the digitalization of production. With future studies, trade fair policy and activities such as OPC UA the association is ready for the future.

OPC Foundation

OPC is the interoperability standard for the secure and reliable exchange of data and information in the industrial automation space and in other industries. It is platform independent and ensures the seamless flow of information among devices from multiple vendors. The OPC Foundation is responsible for the development and maintenance of this standard.

OPC UA is a platform independent service-oriented architecture that integrates all the functionality of the individual OPC Classic specifications into one extensible framework. This multi-layered approach accomplishes the original design specification goals of:

Platform independence: from an embedded microcontroller to cloud-based infrastructure

Security: encryption, authentication, authorization, and auditing

Extensibility: ability to add new features including transports without affecting existing applications

Comprehensive information modelling capabilities: for defining any model from simple to complex