OPC UA - Industrial communication
The open standard OPC UA (Unified Architecture) makes industrial communication easier. It enables secure, reliable, manufacturer- and platform-independent data exchange from the sensor and field level up to the control system and for exchange in the cloud. Measurement data acquisition also benefits from this.
Manufacturer and platform-independent data exchange with OPC UA
OPC UA is independent of manufacturers or system suppliers and the 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 communication islands. Where different fieldbuses were previously only able to communicate 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.
Typical applications with data exchange via OPC UA
Through The availability of the open OPC UA standard benefits applications in communication between machines (M2M), within a site and beyond. The open standard also simplifies networking in process automation and data exchange, for example for system monitoring and fault analysis. Typical applications are 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 PLC controllers or for connecting to PCT systems.
Consistent OPC UA compatibility with Delphin
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 Delphin Data Center has both an OPC UA client and server interface for high-performance transmission of live measurement data, as well as an OPC UA HA server interface for convenient transmission of historical measurement data.
For both live measurement data and historical measurement data, a special binary measurement database developed by Delphin enables exceptionally high data transfer rates of up to 500,000 data points per second. This means that even raw data from vibration measurements can be conveniently transferred via OPC UA.
The measurement database, which is designed entirely for performance, also enables applications with up to 20,000 OPC UA nodes. To make it easy to use this large number of channels, the DDC also has an intuitive browse function.
The Data loggers from the Expert, Loggito and Message series can 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 large interface diversity the data loggers and measurement technology software from Delphin are generally ideally equipped for communication at field level as well as to all other company levels and the cloud.
