The application of open access middleware for cooperation among heterogeneous manufacturing systems

The vision behind industry 4.0 is to create even smarter manufacturing facilities. Industry 4.0 includes both hardware and software components, which are expected to seamlessly interact in a secure manner. Thus, machinery and software components from different manufacturers should be able to communicate in a common language. Such a challenge is typically met by introducing a “middleware” to serve as a joint communication platform. In this paper we discuss the use of OPC UA standard for communication between hardware and software components in a typical manufacturing system. Further we develop a digital twin and present an demonstration of our digital laboratory.