Whitepaper: A Converged Approach to Standards for Industrial Automation
Suppliers and end users need a complete solution to address the complexity of future industrial automation systems. These systems require:
Interoperability to allow devices and independent software applications from multiple suppliers to work together seamlessly
Extensibility to incorporate future large or intelligent systems
Performance and flexibility to handle challenging deployments and use cases
Robustness to guarantee continuity of operation despite partial failures
Integrity and fine-grained security to protect against cyber attacks
Widespread support for an industry standard
The industry needs a clear, technically optimal, proven standards approach. This white paper proposes a new technical architecture to build this future. The design combines the best of the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA), Data Distribution Service (DDS), and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards. It discusses a new architecture using these combined standards that can connect the factory floor to the enterprise, sensors to cloud, and real-time devices to work cells.
