Kalycito, a software company in India and the Fraunhofer Institute announce Phase #2 of the Open Source Automation Development Lab (OSADL) Kalycito – Fraunhofer project. This project is to develop the standard for OPC UA pub/sub over TSN.
My interest in OPC UA and TSN (Time Sensitive Network) goes back a couple of years. I started writing about it in 2017 and continued throughout 2018. But I’ve noticed that the conversation on this subject has tapered off. There’s been very little news for a while. I wrote a preliminary white paper that needs to be updated. You can download it by clicking the square box ad on the right of the Webpage.
There is a working group within the OPC Foundation. I am attempting to get an update from it. If anyone wants to update me on either that or any other TSN news, hit comment on this post or DM me on Twitter @garymintchell.
Meanwhile, I did receive this news a couple of months ago and it got buried in my inbox. Kalycito announced the launch of 2nd edition of the Letter of Intent of Phase #2 of the OSADL project on OPC UA PubSub over TSN. Recalling the major announcement by several automation technology providers at SPS IPC Drives 2018 – who altogether account for more than 95 percent of the market – that they are now in favour of a unified real-time communication system, “it was noteworthy that these companies did not opt for any of the more than 50 different field buses or real-time communication methods used so far. Instead they agreed to unite behind the standard of OPC UA PubSub via TSN.”
The key driver behind this shift is that this OSADL project provides an OPC UA PubSub implementation under an Open Source license that permits integration into commercial software.
With products to be released in the market in mind, Phase #2 intends to work on these deliverables:
- Configuration of TSN endpoints
- Generic interface to TSN
- Improvement of the real-time capabilities of OPC UA
- Certification assistance and related code corrections of OPC UA and PubSub
- Adding a security layer
The start of the new phase #2 project is scheduled on the first day of the Embedded World 2019. Following the successful phase #1 in which the first implementation of PubSub under an Open Source license was developed, there is great anticipation among industry members to join and continue the momentum in phase #2.
