OPC UA

OPC UA is a machine-to-machine communication protocol for industrial automation developed and maintained by the OPC Foundation. OPC UA provides a standardized way for different devices and systems to communicate with each other.

The Neuron OPC UA plugin can be used as a client to access KEPServerEX, Industrial Gateway OPC Server, Prosys Simulation Server, Ignition, and other OPC UA servers. You can also directly access the built-in OPC UA Server of hardware equipment, such as the built-in Server of Siemens S7-1200 PLC, the built-in Server of Omron NJ series PLC, etc.

Add Device

Go to Configuration -> South Devices, then click Add Device to add the driver. Configure the following settings in the popup dialog box.

• Name: The name of this device node.
• Plugin: Select the OPC UA plugin.

Device Configuration

After clicking Create, you will be redirected to the Device Configuration page, where we will set up the parameters required for Neuron to establish a connection with the device. You can also click the device configuration icon on the southbound device card to enter the Device Configuration interface.

Configure Data Groups and Tags

After the plug-in is added and configured, the next step is to establish communication between your device and Neuron by adding groups and tags to the Southbound driver.

Once device configuration is completed, navigate to the South Devices page. Click on the device card or device row to access the Group List page. Here, you can create a new group by clicking on Create, then specifying the group name and data collection interval.

Upon successfully creating a group, click on its name to proceed to the Tag List page. This page allows you to add device tags for data collection. You’ll need to provide information such as the tag address, attributes, and data type.

For information on general configuration items, see Connect to Southbound Devices. The subsequent section will concentrate on configurations specific to the driver.

TIP

You can use UaExpert to view the Namespace Index ( NamespaceIndex) and is the Node ID ( Identifier), for details, see UaExpert.

• For an explanation of namespace indexes and node ids, refer to the OPC UA standard.
• The Neuron set data type must match the OPC UA data type.

Data Types

• INT8（OPC UA SBYTE type）
• INT16
• INT32
• INT64
• UINT8（OPC UA BYTE type）
• UINT16
• UINT32（also used to indicate the OPC UA DATETIME type）
• UINT64
• FLOAT
• DOUBLE
• BOOL
• STRING

Data Type Conversion

Address Format

NS[x,y,z]!NODEID

NS Namespace index.

[x,y,z] Array index, when the data type is array, you can use the index to get to the value of a specific location, the dimension counts from 0, the dimension is not more than 2. x means one-dimensional index, y means two-dimensional index, z means three-dimensional index.

NODEID The node ID, which can be set as a number, a string, or a GUID.

Example Addresses

Use Case

This chapter also provides practical examples to facilitate a quick start.

• Siemens S7-1200
• KEPServerEX
• Industrial Gateway OPC Server
• Ignition
• Prosys Simulation Server

Data Monitoring

After completing the point configuration, you can click Monitoring -> Data Monitoring to view device information and control devices. For details, refer to Data Monitoring.