A case study of data acquisition from field devices using OPC UA and MQTT

Abstract

Data acquisition plays an important role in control (and measurement) systems, especially in the context of IoT. It is required to handle complex or structured data and to transfer data frequently. In this paper, a case study of data acquisition from field devices using OPC UA and MQTT is shown. Not all field devices have interfaces to connect to communication network such as Ethernet and they need help of gateway devices. A SCARA robot designed for studying was used as a field device and it was connected to communication network through a single board computer as gateway device. It is found that the SCARA robot with gateway device can be controlled by the data taken from OPC UA server and that its motion can be monitored by MQTT.