Scottsdale, AZ (USA), Frankfurt/Main (Germany) April 12, 2021 – OPC Foundation and 5G-ACIA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperatively engage in identifying synergies associated with running OPC UA over 5G to best serve industrial applications. OPC Foundation and 5G-ACIA intend to integrate OPC UA with 5G which enhances wireless communication with industrial grade reliability and improved latency guarantees giving system vendors the opportunity to provide new industrial application scenarios like mobile collaborating robots. The MoU aims to strengthen the cooperative relationship and to foster a closer channel for exchanging views by jointly working on an extended layered stack architecture of OPC UA on top of a 5G System.

As an independent standards body, the mission of OPC Foundation is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability between manufacturing and automation assets and to facilitate the seamless and secure exchange of contextualized data between systems throughout the enterprise and the cloud.

The mission of 5G-ACIA is to ensure the best possible applicability of mobile radio especially the 5G technology for connected industries, in particular the manufacturing and process industries. 5G-ACIA will ensure that the interests and particular aspects of the industrial domain are adequately considered in 5G standardization and regulation. 5G-ACIA will further ensure that the ongoing 5G developments are understood by and transferred to the industrial domain. This includes possible integration concepts and migration paths, together with the evaluation of key technologies emerging from 5G standardization bodies.

Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation, ”OPC UA is a core Industrial Internet of Things standard used in manufacturing and process industries. As such, OPC UA supports data connectivity across diverse shopfloor and field environments that require different communications technologies best suited for the conditions at hand. 5G represent important additions to this key list of enabling technologies OPC UA will run on. The OPC Foundation enthusiastically looks forward to collaborating more closely with 5G-ACIA to help maximize the value derived from using OPC UA over 5G”.

Dr. Andreas Mueller, 5G-ACIA General Chair added: “5G represents a key enabling technology for the Factories of the Future and it may lift Industry 4.0 to the next level. A close collaboration between different companies and organizations across the entire ecosystem is essential for making the Industrial 5G vision become a reality. With the integration of OPC UA and 5G, two important building blocks are brought together, thus forming the basis for a highly flexible and powerful connectivity fabric for smart manufacturing. Therefore, we are very excited and happy about the MoU and we look forward to a very close collaboration with the OPC Foundation.”