Softing demonstrates OPC UA Publisher/Subscriber real-time stack

December 6, 2015 – Softing demonstrated a prototype of the Publisher/Subscriber extension of the OPC UA standard at the SPS IPC Drives 2015 in Nuremberg, Germany. This functionality allows a standard Ethernet network to be used for deterministic data exchange based on the emerging IEEE Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standard.

For demonstration purposes the OPC UA Publisher/Subscriber real-time stack has been deployed into two Softing Industrial Ethernet gateways. The application communicates via TSN-enabled switches and a standard Ethernet network in a deterministic way, even if additional network load is added to the Ethernet infrastructure.

The OPC UA Publisher/Subscriber functionality is based on a connectionless UDP secure multicast communication.

In detail, the OPC UA Publisher/Subscriber application demonstrates:

• Guarantee of service for controller-to-controller communication
• Deterministic communication via an existing Ethernet-based infrastructure
• Convergence of control process, streaming and data traffic over one standard Ethernet network without affecting real-time data delivery or wasting bandwidth
• Designed to address “Industry 4.0”/Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) requirements
• Proof of Softing’s gateway architecture as ideal platform for OPC UA implementation

“The Softing OPC UA Publisher/Subscriber stack architecture is an ideal fit for FPGA based hardware platforms,” said Softing OPC product manager Cristian Pogacean. “It follows the same design patterns of our successful Industrial Ethernet communication stacks like PROFINET, EtherNet/IP or EtherCAT and has proven to provide complete deterministic capabilities in combination with the TSN standard.”

About Softing

Softing AG is a leading global provider of products for Industrial Automation and for Automotive Electronics. For more than 30 years, the core business of Softing Industrial Automation has been industrial data communication.