OPC Foundation and CAN in Automation e.V. Agree to Work in partnership to develop mapping specifications for standardization between the two organizations

04/26/2016

For Immediate Release

OPC Foundation and CAN in Automation e.V.Sign Memorandum of Understanding at Hannover Fair

OPC Foundation and CAN in Automation e.V. Agree to Work in partnership to develop mapping specifications for standardization between the two organizations

Scottsdale, AZ – April 26, 2016 – The OPC Foundation is a nonprofit international standards organization dedicated to providing the best specifications, technology, certification and process to achieve multivendor, multiplatform, secure reliable interoperability for moving data and information from the embedded world to the enterprise, inclusive of big data and cloud functionality.  The OPC Foundation has developed the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) as the infrastructure and solution for the Internet of Things and is domain independent.

The CAN in Automation (CiA) international users’ and manufacturers’ group established in 1992 develops the internationally standardized CANopen® technology. This includes the CANopen and CANopen FD® application layer and communication profile specifications as well as the CiA® standardized CANopen device, application, and interface profiles. CiA also specifies application programming interfaces (API) as well as middleware-mappings to CANopen.

The OPC Foundation and CAN in Automation have agreed to collaborate in the development of specifications, white papers, guidelines and processes that provide the infrastructure necessary for the two organizations to promote system wide interoperability. Deliverables from the collaboration between the two organizations will benefit the members of both of the respective organizations in the pursuit of developing and achieving information integration across a multitude of domains.

At the Hannover Fair, Thomas J. Burke, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation and Holger Zeltwanger, CiA Managing Director, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which both organizations agree to closely cooperate in the development and marketing of shared deliverables to foster interoperability.

“The OPC Foundation collaboration with CAN in Automation provides the infrastructure necessary to achieve information modeling of data from CAN technology enabled devices and networks and be able to leverage the power of OPC UA providing generic information integration and seamless communication between devices and applications from the embedded world to the cloud”, says Thomas J Burke.  “ CAN networks are used in many different application fields, inclusive of vehicles, industrial automation, building automation, healthcare and oil / gas.  This closely aligns with the vision of OPC Foundation in the pursuit of domain independence and seamless interoperability across domains”.

“The intended mapping of OPC UA services to CANopen brings embedded and deeply embedded real-time networks to the factory-level communication systems”, says Holger Zeltwanger. “OPC UA servers can be implemented on CANopen host controllers, gateways, or other sophisticated CANopen devices.”

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 is dedicated to providing 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 organization serves over 470 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 about the OPC Foundation, please visit https://opcfoundation.org.

 

About CAN in Automation
The CAN in Automation international users’ and manufacturers’ group established in 1992 develops the internationally standardized CANopen® technology. This includes the CANopen and CANopen FD® application layer and communication profile specifications as well as the CiA® standardized CANopen device, application, and interface profiles. CiA also specifies application programming interfaces (API) as well as middleware-mappings to CANopen.

Media Contacts:

Stefan Hoppe
Vice President OPC Foundation
Stefan.Hoppe@opcfoundation.org

Cindy Weißmüller
CAN in Automation
pr@can-cia.org