The open standard OPC UA makes industrial communication even easier. It enables secure and reliable manufacturer and platform-independent data exchange. From the sensor and field level through to the control system and into the cloud. Measurement data acquisition also benefits from this.
Integrated and secure networks are needed to meet the requirements of tomorrow's industry. The Ethernet-based communication standard OPC UA is an important building block for this. It allows standardized access to machines, devices and other systems in the industrial environment and enables the uniform and manufacturer-independent exchange of data. The UA in OPC UA stands for "Unified Architecture" and refers to the latest specification of the standard.
OPC UA is independent of manufacturers or system suppliers. Communication is independent of the programming language in which the respective software was programmed. It is an open standard without any dependency or connection to proprietary technologies or individual manufacturers.
The VDMA emphasizes that OPC UA is not another communication standard for real-time communication in automation, but creates an additional communication channel between previously separate worlds. Where different fieldbuses were previously only able to exchange information via gateways, which are more or less complex to configure, OPC UA enables open exchange at field level and is equipped for the requirements of Industry 4.0 thanks to its service-oriented architecture. In addition to data communication, data presentation and semantics are also being standardized for end-to-end networking in the Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) application area. OPC UA offers an ideal toolbox for these challenges.
SMART MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE IOT
Data acquisition is one of the core tasks of a networked industry, from electrical engineering and mechanical engineering to energy technology and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Reliable information generation requires automation technology, data loggers with PLC functionality, vibration measurement devices and the right software. As an expert in this field, Delphin Technology is one of the leading German manufacturers of hardware and software. ProfiMessage D is a measuring device for flexible measurement data acquisition. It is equipped with a PROFIBUS interface and can communicate with external systems via OPC UA Server/Client.
COMMUNICATION VIA OPC UA
Thanks to the availability of the open OPC UA standard, applications benefit from communication between machines (M2M), within a site and beyond. It also simplifies networking in process automation and data exchange, for example for system monitoring and fault analysis. Typical applications include condition monitoring or predictive maintenance. Sensor data can be recorded, transferred to the control system or to the cloud and analyzed. The OPC UA interface is therefore also suitable for exchanging data with the PLC or for connecting to process control systems.
OPC UA compatibility throughout
With Delphin, there is complete OPC UA consistency, both for the data loggers and the measurement technology software, and any conceivable architecture can be implemented without any problems. This is an important basis for the success of digital transformation and IT-OT integration, for example in mechanical engineering.
The central measurement data management software from Delphin has both an OPC UA client and server interface for the high-performance transfer of live measurement data and an OPC UA HA server interface for the convenient transfer of historical measurement data. A binary measurement database developed by Delphin enables exceptionally high data transfer rates of up to 500,000 data points per second for both live and historical measurement data. This means that even raw data from vibration measurements can be conveniently transferred via OPC UA.
From the software to the data logger
The measurement database, which is designed entirely for performance, also enables applications with up to 20,000 OPC UA nodes. The software has an intuitive browse function to make it easy to use this number of channels.
The data loggers from Delphin can also communicate directly via OPC UA. They can be configured as OPC UA clients, OPC UA servers and OPC UA HA servers. Thanks to a particularly wide range of interfaces, the data loggers and measurement technology software from Delphin are generally ideally equipped for communication at field level as well as with all other company levels and the cloud.
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