Outcomes, Insights and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds: Smart Factory Web Testbed
interoperability and the characteristics of
these models with the aim of proposing a
meta-model. The information models and
standards used in the Smart Factory Web
Testbed have been contributions to the
DDIM TG work. NEC submitted a research
and development proposal related to the
Smart Factory Web Testbed for the Japanese
government which has been accepted. As
part of this large national project, NEC has
proposed the IIC testbed Negotiation
Automation Platform which extends the
concepts of the Smart Factory Web Testbed
platform and includes information models to
describe assets and supply chains as well as
AI methods for negotiation. The work of
Fraunhofer IOSB will be carried out within
the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence
“Cognitive Internet Technologies”.
within a factory, between different factories
and between the factory and the Smart
Factory Web Testbed. The standards work in
OPC UA is supported by the Open Source
project open62541 where Fraunhofer IOSB
has made major contributions, see
https://open62541.org . KETI will also be
contributing to open62541 in 2019. In
addition, Fraunhofer IOSB has developed the
Fraunhofer Open Source SensorThings API
Server (FROST). Both open62541 and FROST
are deployed in the testbed, and these Open
Source projects contribute to the maturity
and onward development of the respective
standards.
IEC 62714 standard AutomationML is used to
describe the semantics of the data, which
data will be integrated into the Smart
Factory Web, and how that data is going to
be visualized. The Smart Factory Web
Testbed uses AutomationML to provide the
basis for the automatic generation of OPC
UA servers, following the standard
Companion Specification OPC UA for
AutomationML. Experience gained in the
Smart Factory Web Testbed is fed back into
the onward development of the Companion
Specification.
Standards
The Smart Factory Web Testbed employs a
plethora of noteworthy standards. When
possible adaptions to a standard are
identified, the testbed reports to the
relevant standards body. This report may
involve submitting a change request or
undertaking an accommodating process,
depending on the standards organization.
Regarding Open Source projects for
example, the Open Source communities can
process
comments
submitted
and
incorporate changes into the latest releases
of the software. The Smart Factory Web
Testbed supports standards with Open
Source Development as a way of trialing a
standard and receiving practical feedback
about the specification.
One recent activity involved implementing
OPC UA over an OPC UA publisher subscriber
(pub sub) and running it over a Time
Sensitive Network (TSN). The OPC UA pub
sub is a relatively new aspect of OPC UA, and
this implementation executed in conjunction
with an IIC member helped to mature the
specification of this OPC UA pub sub.
Certain areas of relevant standardization are
not yet fleshed out in the industry but are
needed to fulfill the overall use cases, such
IEC 62541 standard OPC UA is used for the
data transfer between automation devices
IIC Journal of Innovation
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