A laser sys­tem is con­sidered a self-con­tained unit, includ­ing the laser source and all required sub­sys­tems, such as the con­trol sys­tem for the laser source, optics, cool­ing aggreg­ates and oth­ers. Hence, one or sev­er­al laser sys­tems may be a sub­com­pon­ent of a lar­ger machine. The goal of this com­pan­ion spe­cific­a­tion is to provide a stand­ard­ized and extend­able inter­face for the integ­ra­tion of laser sys­tems into an OPC UA environment.

This inter­face shall then provide laser sys­tem main­tain­ers with easy and robust access to inform­a­tion, based on which they can optim­ize their indi­vidu­al pro­cesses and derive addi­tion­al value. One example would be the enabling of fast and tar­get-ori­ented main­ten­ance meas­ures or the on-demand stock part man­age­ment of ser­vice life parts. This is primar­ily achieved by provid­ing data regard­ing the laser sys­tem type, iden­tity, and past and cur­rent states/conditions.

The Com­pan­ion Spe­cific­a­tion devel­op­ment was ini­ti­ated and fun­ded by:
• Coher­ent
• Laser­line
• TRUMPF

The doc­u­ment was cre­ated by a joint work­ing group of the OPC Found­a­tion and the VDMA, which involved 40 experts from North Amer­ica, Asia, and Europe.

The fol­low­ing are the use cases covered in Ver­sion 1.0 pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 2024:
• Laser Sys­tem Run­ning or Not Running
• Errors and Warnings
• Inform­a­tion about the Next Maintenance
• Uni­form Iden­ti­fic­a­tion of Laser Systems
• Recipe Set­tings and Overview
• Activ­ity Log­ging Information
• Con­di­tion Data Monitoring
• Con­sump­tion Data

Con­tact
Dr. Sven Breit­ung, Joint Work­ing Group Vice Chairperson
VDMA – Machinery and Equip­ment Man­u­fac­tur­ers Association

The spe­cific­a­tion is avail­able free of charge from umati.org/ua4laser