Auto Generation of SM Profiles Using the OPC UA – MTConnect Companion Specification
Project Lead: Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM)
Partners: The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), Beeond
Member % Cost Share: 50%
CESMII % Cost Share: 50%
Duration: 6 Months
Problem Statement
- Building a profile inside the SMIP is a manual process limiting the rate of adoption of the platform
- The utility of the information model in the SMIP is limited by lack of coherence between OPC UA Companion specification information models and SMIP device profiles
Project Goal
Enable a streamlined workflow for introducing and connecting new and existing equipment into the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform (SMIP) while maintaining coherence with OPC UA information models.
Technical Approach
- Model – Create an OPC UA information model for an EOS 290M machine which conforms to the OPC UA-MTC companion spec using Beeond’s UMX Pro modeling software.
- Configure – Develop a lightweight toolset to automate the translation and import of the OPC UA nodeset to an SM profile.
- Connect – Automatically instantiate an OPC UA server based on the modeled device using Beeond toolset. The team will work with CESMII and ThinkIQ to explore automation of the mapping of data items from specific machine instances to instances of the SM profile and ingest data to the SMIP from the OPC UA server.
Deliverables/Outcomes/SM Marketplace
- Delivered complete training materials and manuals detailing deployment, configuration and connection processes.
- Delivered MetaStudio and EOSmodel executable files.
- 3D Printer SM Profile
- MTConnect to SMProfile Generator
Potential Impact
- Faster, cheaper device integration into the Smart Manufacturing Platform
- Faster, cheaper industrial systems integration of OPC UA and/or MTConnect compliant devices
- Industry can leverage coherent, composable information models and associated SMIP profiles to allow a wide variety of devices to integrate with any application by leveraging OPC UA information models
Benefits
- Dramatically increase the volume and development pace of SMIP Profiles
- Increase the appeal of the SMIP by reducing overall integration time
- The reusable profile for a DLMS 3D printer assists with SMIP adoption in Additive Manufacturing
