Step 5: OPC UA ModelDesign Best Practices

Last updated on April 10, 2022

Collection of OPC UA ModelDesign best practices to write your own ModelDesign file

This Post is part of the OPC UA Information Model Tutorial.

Unified Automation offers ressources for its UAModeler, which are applicable to modeling in general.

• http://documentation.unified-automation.com/uamodeler/1.6.3/html/modeling.html

Other resources and interesting links:

• https://opcfoundation.org/forum/opc-ua-implementation-stacks-tools-and-samples/ua-netstandard-enabling-engineeringunits-in-uaanalogitemtype
• https://github.com/open62541/open62541/issues/2135
• https://github.com/OPCFoundation/UA-ModelCompiler/blob/master/ModelCompiler/Design.v104/OpcUaFdiPart5Model.xml
• https://github.com/OPCFoundation/UA-ModelCompiler/blob/master/ModelCompiler/Design.v103/MTConnectModel.xml
• https://reference.opcfoundation.org/v104/Core/VariableTypes/AnalogUnitRangeType/
• https://reference.opcfoundation.org/v104/Core/VariableTypes/AnalogUnitType/
• https://reference.opcfoundation.org/v104/Core/docs/Amendment1/ https://reference.opcfoundation.org/v104/Core/docs/Amendment1/5.3.2/

(paper) A systematic approach to OPC UA information model design

source: https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_252957.pdf

Excerpt from the abstract: This paper describes a systematic approach to OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) information model for representing the static and dynamic behavior of manufacturing systems. Moreover, the approach is generic in the sense that it can be used to define information models for multiple target technologies, such as OPC UA, MTConnect and others. It even allows to reuse large parts of the generated models for similar manufacturing utilities and various target technologies. Therefore, we first present a concept for system analysis and design by using the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is widely accepted for interdisciplinary work. The information gathered is then transformed to OPC UA information models which serves as target technology in this paper. The purpose of this approach is to simplify the process of defining virtual representations of manufacturing systems. Applying the presented concept allows transformation of classic manufacturing systems into CPPS with SOA-based communication and semantically rich virtual representations of individual components.