OPC UA plus TSN
The TSN promoter
At SPS IPC Drives 2017, a total of 17 automation and IT companies confirmed their intention to establish the OPC UA plus TSN communication solution on the market as quickly as possible.
On the first day of the show, the 17 companies of the so-called Shaper Group reaffirmed their commitment to finalize the OPC UA plus TSN communication solution. Todd Walter, Avnu Alliance Industrial Segment Chair: "Through increased collaboration between Avnu, IIC and OPC Foundation, we are accelerating the creation of an open, interoperable ecosystem for devices that benefit from secure, guaranteed latency and messaging for critical traffic." He formulated three milestones achieved:
- Progressing conformance testing:
According to this, the test plans for the conformance testing of TSN time synchronization have already been completed by Avnu and are available for test houses. As part of the joint interoperability workshop of AVNU and the IIC (Industrial Internet Consortium), more than 20 companies met in October with the support of the InterOperability Lab at the University of New Hampshire, which is recognized by Avnu, to demonstrate interoperability in the IIC TSN testbed and ensure it for future users.
- Finalizing the standards:
"The Publish-Subscribe extension for OPC UA will soon be available as a release," reports Thomas Burke, President OPC Foundation, "and will enable the exchange of OPC UA data over UDP" - a basic requirement for OPC UA over TSN. A total of 85 OPC members are actively involved in the OPC UA TSN working group.
- Interoperability between different manufacturers:
The interoperability tests within the IIC TSN testbed are making progress: According to the report, eight plugfests have taken place in Europe and the USA with more than 20 companies within the last 18 months. The interoperability between devices from different manufacturers, some of whom are competitors, was tested and demonstrated. Many of the devices already communicate in OPC UA data format. To ensure the completeness of the conformance tests, the results of the plugfests are incorporated directly into them.
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