Bridging the Gap between SysML and OPC UA Information Models for Industry 4.0

By: Fadwa Rekik, Saadia Dhouib, Quang-Duy Nguyen

Abstract

SysML is a UML profile used for multi-disciplinary systems engineering. The rise of Industry 4.0 modernizes industrial systems with new technologies and consequently demands the SysML language to be extended to cover new specific concepts. Among these new technologies, Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a highly recommended standard for the interoperability of industrial systems. OPC UA offers a data modeling mechanism that can represent an industrial system’s resources in the form of an OPC UA information model. Technically, the OPC UA information model is the combination of the basic information model proposed by the OPC Foundation and other companion specifications’ information models related to the system’s specific domains. When refining a SysML design for such an OPC UA-based system, it can be challenging to enrich the design model and integrate all the information from a companion specification. This paper aims to bridge the gap between SysML engineering environments and OPC UA information models with two contributions. First, we propose to extend SysML with a new UML profile corresponding to the OPC UA Robotics companion specification released by the joint working group between the OPC Foundation and the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association. Second, we share our approach to automatically generating OPC UA information models from high-level SysML design models. The two use cases in our robotic cell, also presented in this paper, show the importance of this research in practice.

Keywords

SysML, UML profiles, OPC UA information models, Model transformation, QVTo, Industry 4.0, VDMA Robotics.

Cite as:

Fadwa Rekik, Saadia Dhouib, Quang-Duy Nguyen, “Bridging the Gap between SysML and OPC UA Information Models for Industry 4.0”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 22, no. 2 (July 2023), pp. 2:1-15, doi:10.5381/jot.2023.22.2.a14.