- Identify and leverage the synergies of OPC UA with 5G
- Serving Industrie 4.0 market with a reliable and flexible communication technology
- Giving system vendors new business opportunities for mobile industrial applications
Scottsdale, AZ April 12th, 2021 – OPC Foundation and 5G-ACIA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperatively engage in identifying synergies associated with running OPC UA over 5G to best serve industrial applications. OPC Foundation and 5G-ACIA intend to integrate OPC UA with 5G which enhances wireless communication with industrial grade reliability and improved latency guarantees giving system vendors the opportunity to provide new industrial application scenarios like mobile collaborating robots. The MoU aims to strengthen the cooperative relationship and to foster a closer channel for exchanging views by jointly working on an extended layered stack architecture of OPC UA on top of a 5G System.
As an independent standards body, the mission of OPC Foundation is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability between manufacturing and automation assets and to facilitate the seamless and secure exchange of contextualized data between systems throughout the enterprise and the cloud.
The mission of 5G-ACIA is to ensure the best possible applicability of mobile radio especially the 5G technology for connected industries, in particular the manufacturing and process industries. 5G-ACIA will ensure that the interests and particular aspects of the industrial domain are adequately considered in 5G standardization and regulation. 5G-ACIA will further ensure that the ongoing 5G developments are understood by and transferred to the industrial domain. This includes possible integration concepts and migration paths, together with the evaluation of key technologies emerging from 5G standardization bodies.
Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation, ”OPC UA is a core Industrial Internet of Things standard used in manufacturing and process industries. As such, OPC UA supports data connectivity across diverse shopfloor and field environments that require different communications technologies best suited for the conditions at hand. 5G represent important additions to this key list of enabling technologies OPC UA will run on. The OPC Foundation enthusiastically looks forward to collaborating more closely with 5G-ACIA to help maximize the value derived from using OPC UA over 5G”.
Dr. Andreas Mueller, 5G-ACIA General Chair added: “5G represents a key enabling technology for the Factories of the Future and it may lift Industry 4.0 to the next level. A close collaboration between different companies and organizations across the entire ecosystem is essential for making the Industrial 5G vision become a reality. With the integration of OPC UA and 5G, two important building blocks are brought together, thus forming the basis for a highly flexible and powerful connectivity fabric for smart manufacturing. Therefore, we are very excited and happy about the MoU and we look forward to a very close collaboration with the OPC Foundation.”
About OPC Foundation:
Since 1996, the OPC Foundation has facilitated the development and adoption of the OPC information exchange standards. As both advocate and custodian of these specifications, the Foundation’s mission is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability in their manufacturing and automation assets. The OPC Foundation provides the best specifications, technology, process, and certification to achieve multivendor, multiplatform, secure, reliable, interoperability for moving data and information from the embedded world to the enterprise cloud. The Foundation serves over 800 members worldwide in the Industrial Automation, IT, IoT, IIoT, M2M, Industrie 4.0, Building Automation, machine tools, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and Smart Energy sectors.
For more information, please visit www.opcfoundation.org
About 5G-ACIA:
The 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA) is the central global forum for shaping industrial 5G standards. 5G-ACIA members jointly prepare for the disruptive change that 5G will bring, promote a better understanding of industrial needs, and gain insights into a highly attractive emerging market. 5G-ACIA provides a unique platform for OT and ICT companies, academia, and all relevant stakeholders to influence 5G development and deployment, in line with industrial imperatives. The currently more than 80 member organizations make the results of their work directly available to 3GPP, the main standardization body for developing 5G. 5G-ACIA is a market representation partner of 3GPP and has the formal status of a working party of ZVEI e.V. www.5g-acia.org
For questions, please contact:
5G-ACIA
Mr. Sven Stern
+49 69 6302-404
SvenMorten.Stern@zvei.org
OPC Foundation
Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director
Stefan.hoppe@opcfoundation.org
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