Communication without limits

Guarantee the development of sustainable software for the manufacturers of machinery and offer to the users strategic advantages in the global market: these are the aims of the surroundings of development Automation Studio of B&R. When it treats to manage the communication from the level of process until the level of the company, B&R bases in OPC Unified architecture or, what is the same, OPC UA. This protocol offers easy functions to use to access to the data and to the programs independently of the platform used, doing the much easier life to the engineers of applications along the process.

The complexity of the tasks of industrial automation is every time greater, which comports to the development of more concepts of control increasingly distributed. These approaches allow a technology of automation more individual, flexible and structured modularmente, since the intelligent peripheral devices connected through industrial Ethernet every time are more frequent. Every time it is more common, for example, instrument pieces or individual components of the machine with his own controllers and group them to form a complete machine.

An effective communication between the subsystems and the individual components is of crucial importance for the productivity of this type of solutions. In the first days of the industrial electronics equipment dealers equipment dealers, the systems communicated using interfaces or controllers of device programmed of individual form. It does almost two decades, the industry of the automation began to look for forms to offer interoperability without need of programming of applications. An example of this, is OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), a protocol of exchange of data developed by Microsoft in 1992 for applications of office that roots directly in the operating system. OLE Allows actions like the integration of the values from sources of external data in tables or the incorporation of tables and images in the documents. To continuation, developed interfaces of software standardised for the exchange of data between applications of different manufacturers, basing in this protocol, that entered in the year 1996 under the name of OPC (OLE for Process Control). From 1998, also they have included in Automation Runtime, the operating system in real time of B&R.

The manufacturers of final devices used in the industrial automation can configure a server OPC to take advantage of the data of the customers OPC in the controllers, systems Scada and devices HMI. OPC Is very easy to use, as they show it the controllers that deliver with the printers of office that have allowed the integration of the same in the surroundings of office of Windows. “This has reduced considerably the quantity of effort that requires to program tasks of communication”, explains Hans Egermeier, director of the Unit of Business Automation Software of B&R. “The most important, however, is that it allowed to develop systems distributed with the software and the devices of different manufacturers of profitable form, as it is usual nowadays”. The development of software for compatible products with OPC bases in another technology of Microsoft for a common frame: COM/DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model). On the one hand, this offers the advantage of a technological platform with a high degree of stability because of his wide distribution. On the other hand, however, the developers confront to the limitations of the DCOM, like a very slow configuration, without the possibility to establish parameters of time neither to enable characteristics of high availability. Other points against include to be tied to the operating system Windows and a fault of control because of the proprietary nature of COM/DCOM. Besides, a server OPC has to configure in a hardware of compatible PC with Windows separately with the end to implement a system of communication with OPC.

OPC Allows to develop systems distributed with the software and the devices to distinct manufacturers.

The superación of all these defects was the aim of the OPC UA (Unified architecture), the specification of which completed in 2009 by part of OPC Foundation. This technology combines the previously separated specifications for data, events, objects or commandos in an alone standard unified. OPC UA Also has an architecture oriented to services (SOA) with several layers of communication and a battery of communication separately to replace the technology COM/DCOM previous. This no only does that it was easier to carry to different technologies, but it also allows the safe exchange, reliable and independent of the platform of the primary data and the information preprocesada between the level of the device of field and the planning of the production and systems ERP. Available in ANSI C, C# and Java, the battery of communication OPC UA can carry to any operating system or hardware embebido and compile for his use in operations multihilo or of an alone task. This allows that any intelligent final device act like a server OPC UA independently of the manufacturer, the programming language and the operating system, with which is not necessary an intermediate PC. “OPC UA Provides escalabilidad complete: from the software of integrated control until the systems of information of management", comments Egermeier. The standard of communication OPC UA no only offers a system of authentication separated based in tasks according to the current standards, but it also allows safe connections certified and an entirely transparent configuration in all the process. Also it allows to divide big packages of data so that they are handy for systems smaller through the fragmentation.

With OPC UA, supplies the necessary information to all the applications authorised in a customer from any server configured in real time in shape of types of data, variables of the CPU (with properties), methods or tasks, independently of the bus of field or of other mechanisms of transfer used. The standard uses the basic services and the models of information to define how accesses to the data. OPC UA Allows a direct and independent communication of the platform, between the different applications in any hardware and platforms of operating systems. The surroundings of development Automation Studio is compatible with OPC UA and does that it was easier to connect the solutions of automation of B&R to all type of customers HMI, packages SCADA and intelligent devices. This allows to the engineers of applications concentrate in his tasks of real automation, so that they can enter better systems in the market of form faster and efficient.

The surroundings of development Automation Studio is compatible with the data of access OPC UA and does that it was easier to connect the solutions of automation of B&R to all type of customers HMI, packages SCADA and intelligent devices. This allows to the engineers of applications concentrate in his tasks of real automation, so that they can enter better systems in the market of form faster and efficient.

B&R Defines the form in that they exchange the data between the mechanisms of transport TCP/conventional IP and the models of clear-cut data by the manufacturers of devices and the organisations of normalisation like PLCopen. The same applies in different networks and different companies through Internet and firewalls. “The function of navigation in OPC UA does that it was easier to configure the industrial communication between devices of different manufacturers. With this function, the customers determine automatically which servers are available and which type of data can contribute each one of them”, explains Egermeier. The use of a metamodelo allows to evaluate the types of data and the semantic of the information. This contributes substantially to prepare the system for the future, since it deletes the need to design an application or operating system to handle all the future possibilities of the device server.

The protocol of communication OPC UA, definitely, goes to turn into a standard for the networks of plants inside a short period of time, had to mainly to his opening and ease of use. “Begin by a sight predetermined simple and standardised simplifies the configuration of applications with a complexity limited”, adds Egermeier. “If necessary, the configurations can adapt easily to the level of complexity in question using seen of user oriented to the requirements facing any limitation”. So much in the sight predetermined simple as in the seen of individual user, is possible to represent any level of complexity through steps of simple configuration.

With architectures customer-server, OPC UA provides uniform mechanisms, independent of the manufacturer for the access to the data and the program along all the levels of industrial automation.