To provide a simple and cost effective introduction in the open communication technology, SSV in cooperation with the OPC UA experts of Unified Automation now offers a Linux-based OPC Unified Architecture Starter Kit. A powerful, extendable hardware platform was combined with a flexible software development framework. Together with documentation and sample code the package demonstrates a "real-live" scenario. Besides the two compact embedded Linux gateways in a DIN rail casing, which have preinstalled OPC UA software for Client and Server respectively, the Starter Kit comes with all required components necessary for a quick start.
Guided by simple examples, both, new comers and experienced developers can investigate the OPC UA cross platform built environment on embedded Linux and evaluate the performance on a powerful ARM9 system. Of course own applications can be realised as well. In the OPC UA Starter Kit the OPC UA Client as well as the Server are realized on a network enabled, DIN rail mounted, embedded system. The data exchange between both systems is based on the high performant OPC TCP protocol including certificate based authentication and encypted data transfer.
For first testing a temperature sensor is connected as data source for the OPC UA Server. The example shows how measurement values are transmitted to the OPC UA Client via Ethernet using the demo software provided with the Starter Kit. The UA Client as actuator shows the state of the measurement. Different value ranges are interpreted by the OPC UA actuator and are visualized with a connected signal light. This example represents a typical condition monitoring use case and can easily be enhanced for other applications. Because of the compact size the two space-saving DIN rail systems can be integrated into own applications and thus can be reused after successful evaluation phase.
