VDMA Machine Vision and OPC Foundation collaborating on companion specification

At the recent AUTOMATICA tradeshow, VDMA Machine Vision and the OPC Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the preparation of an OPC UA Machine Vision Companion Specification.

OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is an industrial machine-to-machine communication protocol for interoperability.

"We want to make machine vision fit for Industry 4.0 and for the factory of the future. We are aiming at straightforward integration of machine vision systems into production control and IT systems via OPC Unified Architecture," said Dr. Klaus-Henning Noffz, CEO of Silicon Software and in charge of standardization issues at the Board of VDMA Machine Vision.

The collaboration was preceded by a VDMA Machine Vision-led study last summer, which aimed at showing which standards are important to prepare the sector for the future.

"Camera interfaces and standards for communication and networking of various machine vision components within the system are already there, tremendously facilitating the work of systems integrators. What is missing is a generic interface for machine vision systems at user level," said Dr. Horst Heinol-Heikkinen, Managing Director of ASENTICS and board member of VDMA Machine Vision.

OPC UA Machine Vision Companion specification, information, data, functions, and services should be integrated into a production network and mapped in OPC UA.

Stefan Hoppe, Vice President of the OPC Foundation, commented: “The OPC Foundation provides THE industrial interoperability standard for horizontal and vertical information integration from sensors to the enterprise. OPC UA’s initial focus was the industrial automation market and because OPC UA is completely vendor and operating system independent, it has quickly become the adopted interoperability solution for other markets and domains.

OPC UA technology has already been named the recommended communication technology in Germany’s Industry 4.0 initiative.

VDMA Machine Vision recognized the potential of OPC UA, as the joint working group will create the specification, which will enable camera vision systems to be easily and securely connected to controllers but also into the IT world.

View more information on VDMA Machine Vision.
View more information on the OPC Foundation.

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