The OPC Foundation announced that the OPC UA Safety Compliance Test Tool (UASCTT) has received official certification from TÜV SÜD, confirming its compliance with OPC UA Safety testing for Client/Server communication. This certification represents a significant advancement in ensuring consistent and dependable safety communication within industrial automation systems.
Developed under the guidance of IFAK (Institut für Automation und Kommunikation e.V.), the UASCTT is vital for validating OPC UA Safety implementations. It enables manufacturers to verify that their products meet strict functional safety and interoperability standards.
Elke Hintze, project manager at IFAK overseeing the tool’s development on behalf of the OPC Foundation, highlighted the importance of the certification: “TÜV SÜD’s endorsement of the UASCTT underscores the tool’s maturity and reliability, providing manufacturers with a trusted means to conduct conformity testing and promoting harmonized safety communication across automation networks.”
OPC UA Safety is standardized as Part 15 (10000-015) of the OPC UA Framework and was developed by the OPC Foundation’s Safety Joint Working Group in collaboration with Profibus & Profinet International (PI) since 2018. Chaired by Christian Eitner of Siemens, the group established technical specifications that ensure safety communication is independent of the transport layer, utilizing the “black channel” approach integral to the OPC UA standard (IEC 62541).
Christian Eitner remarked, “The TÜV SÜD certification of the UASCTT offers vendors a trusted and high-quality tool to validate their safety communication implementations. This milestone strengthens network robustness and interoperability and accelerates progress toward a safer and more connected industrial future.”
Future development plans include expanding the UASCTT to cover OPC UA PubSub and OPC UA FX (Field eXchange), both essential for the black channel architecture’s mapper concept, which will enable OPC UA Safety to support emerging communication models seamlessly.
Stefan Hoppe, President of the OPC Foundation, stated, “The TÜV SÜD certification sends a clear message to the global automation community that OPC UA Safety is ready for widespread implementation. As we extend support to PubSub and OPC UA FX, we continue advancing our goal of providing a unified, secure, and interoperable communication standard spanning from sensor devices to cloud applications.”
Since 1996, the OPC Foundation has driven the creation and adoption of the OPC standard for information exchange. Its mission is to enable interoperability across manufacturing and automation systems by offering comprehensive specifications, technologies, certification programs, and processes that support secure and reliable communication across diverse vendors and platforms—from embedded devices to enterprise cloud solutions. The foundation supports more than 1,000 global members across sectors including industrial automation, IT, IoT, IIoT, Industry 4.0, building automation, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and smart energy.
