Sensor-actuator communication
IO-Link - Companion Specification for OPC UA in progress
The IO-Link community has set up a technical working group to specify the integration of IO-Link in OPC UA based on existing use cases. A final proposal for a corresponding Companion Specification (draft for voting) should be available in 2018.
The Industry 4.0 platform sees OPC UA (from the OPC Foundation) as a suitable architecture model for implementing end-to-end integration from IT to field level. For this reason, a corresponding standard for a data and function model is now being developed within the IO-Link community in order to be able to represent IO-Link devices and IO-Link masters accordingly in OPC UA in the future. The approach follows the general recommendation of developing OPC UA Companion Standards.
IO-Link as a point-to-point protocol for sensors and actuators has become increasingly established over the last few years. By using appropriate so-called "IO-Link masters", IO-Link sensors and actuators can be connected to the various fieldbus systems without further adaptation. Today, such masters can even be integrated into simple devices at low cost. IO-Link thus offers the possibility of accessing a very wide range of sensors and actuators in a standardized and fieldbus-independent manner.
As part of Industry 4.0 efforts, there is also a need to semantically integrate IO-Link devices into systems that lie above the fieldbus in order to be able to evaluate sensor data. This functionality is often referred to as "sensor to cloud" to express that the sensor data is analyzed by IT systems that are outside the automation. In this way, sensor data can also be seamlessly connected to MES and ERP systems.
The new IO-Link / OPC UA working group (C4/PG51) is headed by Michael Tiegelkamp from TE Connectivity.
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