Compressed Air Systems

Scope / Goals

Develop an OPC UA Information Model for the communication of compressed air system components/devices. For communication between such components especially a Master Control System (MCS) to higher-level systems or devices, a universal manufacturer-independent interface based on OPC UA is in the focus.
A typical compressed air station consists of several devices, such as compressors, dryers, filters, air quality monitoring units etc., it is commonly also equipped with a master control system (MCS). The latter is used to control the connected devices and gather information from the same. This aggregated information is often provided to higher level systems through existing field bus technology (e.g. Profibus, Modbus, CAN Bus), with the drawback that the content and structure of the provided information is highly dependent on the manufacturer of the MCS.

The following picture shows an example with one Compressed Air System which is managed by an MCS.

Main scope is to transport condition data of a CAS vertically into higher level manufacturing systems (MES; etc.) for information and monitoring purposes and to set basic parameters regarding the target values of the respective CAS. The description of the CAS and its components is focused on selected use cases, which are: device identification, configuration, maintenance management, energy management, and operation.
A first OPC UA specification OPC 40250-1: Compressed Air Systems – Main Control System is already released.

Further companion specifications are planned for single devices of a compressed air system (e.g. compressors, dryers).