Dates and Events:
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OSADL Articles:
2023-11-12 12:00
Open Source License Obligations Checklists even better now
Import the checklists to other tools, create context diffs and merged lists
2022-07-11 12:00
Call for participation in phase #4 of Open Source OPC UA open62541 support project
Letter of Intent fulfills wish list from recent survey
2022-01-13 12:00
Phase #3 of OSADL project on OPC UA PubSub over TSN successfully completed
Another important milestone on the way to interoperable Open Source real-time Ethernet has been reached
2021-02-09 12:00
Open Source OPC UA PubSub over TSN project phase #3 launched
Letter of Intent with call for participation is now available |
SPS Smart Production Solutions 2025
OSADL talks at ESE Embedded Software Engineering Kongress
COOL - Compact OSADL Online Lectures - December 2025 edition
The OSADL OPC UA PubSub over TSN Project
Project phase #1 - Project phase #2 - Project phase #3 - Project phase #4 - Presentations - Project overview
Rationale
Motivation
The Ethernet standard and the future evolution of this base communication layer represents today an important standard of interoperable network communication - in fact from sensor via control system up to the server. According to common understanding, this will remain so without doubt in the near and even less near future. To the contrary, there are many doubts that the upper communication layers will remain as they are now, since the desired deterministic and interoperable connectivity of the future requires that only a single protocol be used - instead of the more than 40 different ones none of which has reached more than 50 percent market share. In addition, communication methods are needed that require much less resources than today which is an important prerequisite to serve the expected large number of future nodes.
Next generation OPC UA: What has been achieved so far
After the successful completion of four phases of the OSADL project "OPC UA PubSub over TSN", the 
open62541 project now provides an SDK that allows users to set up a modern OPC UA server that can be certified by the OPC Foundation based on the "Standard UA Server Profile 2017". The software is available under an Open Source-license which can be easily combined with proprietary components.
In addition, a PubSub implementation has been made available, which - for the first time - allowed the use of Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and other Time-Sensitive Networking components (TSN) to enable real-time communication over Ethernet. A quick start guide has been developed for the correct configuration of TSN with Linux. Another milestone was the implementation of secure PubSub with encryption and TPM support. With the successful completion of the fourth and final project phase to date, further milestones have been achieved that make the SDK easier and more flexible to use. The features implemented include dynamic loading of the information model at runtime, the ability to configure the server via a JSON file, and specific recommendations for using the SDK on resource constrained devices.
Project phases
- Phase #4 (completed)
- Load and store information data model at run time through configuration file (not statically compiled in firmware)
- Implement “reverse connect feature” as described in "OPC 10000-7 - Part 7: Profiles", chapters 6.6.5 Reverse Connect Server Facet and 6.6.75 Reverse Connect Client Facet
- Complement the ongoing project to update the OPC client/server release to version 1.05 without overlapping with the parts already commissioned
- Implement support of PubSub state machine according to OPC10000-14, chapter 6.2.1
- Companion specification selection in the build system for fast integration
- Server configuration with a JSON file
- Further CPU and memory optimizations for resource constrained devices (identify, document and implement optimizations for memory and CPU footprint)
- Phase #3 (completed)
- Security support for the UADP protocol
- Providing certification prerequisites according to the “Full Embedded Profile” by OPC Foundation
- Phase #2 (completed)
- Successful certification of an example server according to the “Micro Embedded Device Server” profile by OPC Foundation
- PubSub implementation as stand-alone server
- Phase #1 (completed)
- Brokerless OPC UA Pub/Sub via IP multicast and the binary message encoding format according to draft of part 14 of the OPC UA specification
- Integration of the publisher in a regular OPC UA server with additional real-time interrupting
- Implementation of the subscribers as standalone software
Presentations
In-depth presentations along with a video clip are available here.
