The Ethernet standard is the basis of today's and future communication in the industrial environment, from the sensor on the machine, to control systems and server environments. That will lead to disproportionate growth of the number of network nodes. A means to make the communication between all network participants manageable, the OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture) protocol could be used. OPC UA is a collection of standards for M2M communication that are already supported by large parts of the automation industry worldwide and are to be made future-proof to meet this challenge.

For this purpose, the OSADL OPC UA / TSN Project was launched based on the project open62541 ( https://open62541.org ) by the Open Source Automation Development Lab eG (OSADL). More information on this initiative can be found here:

https://www.osadl.org/OPC-UA-TSN.opcua-tsn.0.html .

This open source initiative offers the industry free access to this core technology and source code base.

In addition, the TSN (Time Sensitive Networking) protocol is considered as the technological foundation to provide deterministic services through IEEE 802 networks even down to fieldbus level.

The RTOS Microware OS-9 complements OPC UA functionality, especially if system reliability, fast boot sequences and fast responses on external events are application requirements. The structured architecture of OS-9 allows small footprint designs at cost effective project and product cost.

These characteristics have now been extended to harmonize with the OSADL OPC UA / TSN project:

Compiler Technology

Based on the open source project LLVM / CLANG Compiler, MicroSys has created for OS-9 a new C / C ++ compiler that meets the latest C and C ++ standards.

OPC UA

Using this compiler, Microware OS-9 has been adapted to OPC UA based on the project open62541.org and fed back into the original GitHub repository.

In a first step, this development was implemented for the Arm® and Power Architecture, the adaptation for Intel CPUs will follow.

Thus, OS-9 users have the option of using open62541 to create an OPC UA server and clients based on this open source project.

At the example of an EtherCAT communication for control tasks visualized by OPC UA, the functionality can be demonstrated under Microware OS-9. If you're interested, MicroSys will be happy to help.

Interested in more information on OS-9?