Things really got historic when OPC Board member Matthias Damm, Ascolab, presented the topic "OPC UA down to field level" during the press conference. He lists 21 well-known automation companies - including Rockwell, Siemens and Mitsubishi - that are now pursuing a common goal: Under the umbrella of the OPC Foundation, they want to drive OPC UA technology down to the field device level. The aim is to combine the advantages of OPC UA technology with its information models, semantics and integrated security with the manufacturers' communication expertise at field level. According to Damm, all participants have agreed to leave the TSN definition as well as the definition of the TSN profiles for industrial automation (TSN-IA) to IEC and IEEE in order to avoid double standardization and thus be able to run different protocols via a single TSN network technology in the future. "The new initiative is an important step for the integration of OPC UA in field devices. It completes the OPC Foundation's vision of offering a consistent standard that is used from the sensor to the cloud," says Damm. "If the transmission is to take place in deterministic real time, TSN will be switched on as an option in future and thus OPC UA over TSN will be transported." The decision to drive OPC UA down to the field device level and to include TSN in the process has triggered an enormous wave of approval: "In just three weeks, 21 who's who companies have joined the Foundation's call for collaboration in order to coordinate activities in the steering committee," says Damm happily. A meeting in December will prepare the start of the actual working groups for the topics of IO, motion, safety and system redundancy - the technical groups are open to all OPC members free of charge and are due to start in January.

"Today, OPC UA is the center of gravity when it comes to the secure, standardized exchange of information from the sensor to the cloud," emphasizes Stefan Hoppe in his new role as President of the OPC Foundation. "The attraction potential of OPC UA is enormous and we are experiencing popularity in all areas," says the President, delighted with new members such as chip manufacturers Intel and NXP, as well as Danfoss, Balluff, Atlas Copco Airpower and Entrust Datacard. With regard to the recent decision to push OPC UA to the field level and only support one TSN variant - TSN-IA - Hoppe emphasizes the importance of the OPC Foundation: "The OPC Foundation is the UN of automation - this is where all automation manufacturers meet on neutral ground to pursue joint standardization". In this context, he introduces three new Board members: Dr. Bernhard Eschermann (ABB), Mr. Fabrice Jadot (Schneider) and Dr. Jürgen Weinhofer (Rockwell).

The players at field level

As of November 26, 2018, the following companies are members of the Field Level Communications Steering Committee of the OPC Foundation: ABB, Beckhoff Automation, Bosch Rexroth, B&R Industrie-Elektronik, Cisco Systems, Hilscher, Hirschmann, Huawei, Kalycito, Kuka, Mitsubishi Electric, Molex, Omron, Phoenix Contact, Pilz, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Siemens, TTTech Computertechnik, Wago Kontakttechnik, Yokogawa.

The Companion Standards

Andreas Faath, speaker at the VDMA Industry 4.0 Forum, reports on the work on OPC UA companion specifications at the VDMA. He lists 31 trade associations - compared to 11 in 2017 - that are working on the topic of OPC UA with the aim of creating a companion specification. "The results of the Machine Vision group are already recognized as an international 'G3 standard'," says Faath. "The VDMA is seen internationally as the central point of contact for the 'Companion Spec' in the manufacturing sector," emphasizes Hoppe and is pleased about the joint seminars held in China, India and soon also in Japan and the USA: "The benefits we achieve when we can connect eight robots from different manufacturers to SAP or Microsoft Azure in a secure and standardized way in just a few minutes using the same interface are easy to understand and well received," says Faath, pointing to the VDMA's efforts to drive forward the harmonization and coordination of the various Companion Specs within the VDMA but also internationally with other organizations - as recently in China. In addition to these activities, the OPC Foundation presented an 'Expert Program' as a marketplace for modeling experts to provide validated expertise to help meet the demand for Companion Standards.

Standardized IO-Link connection

Other topics could only be touched on. After Siemens and Harting, Balluff, Leuze, Turck and Sick are now also offering devices with OPC UA for the AutoID interface of various readers such as 1D, 2D, RFID and RTLS in 2017. Furthermore, OPC UA for IO-Link was released with the help of 23 companies in order to connect IO-Link devices inside and outside the automation pyramid in a standardized way. Increased adaptation was also the focus of 'OPC UA Client for IEC61131-3', which has now also been implemented by Siemens for the S7-1500 and Honeywell. "This is based on an initiative from 2006," recalls Hoppe.