UA Edge Translator

Protocol bridging for brownfield assets with OPC UA and Web of Things

UA Edge Translator is an industrial connectivity edge reference application that translates proprietary protocols into a standardized OPC UA information model. It uses W3C Web of Things (WoT) Thing Descriptions (JSON-LD) via the WoT-Connectivity specification, so mappings are portable, easier to maintain, and can be edited with the Eclipse Foundation’s edi{TD}or.

WoT-Connectivity (WoT-Con) is an OPC UA companion specification that standardizes how connectivity software (gateways, translators) is configured and managed through an OPC UA information model. This enables OPC UA to serve as both the data plane and the control plane, avoiding the common “OPC UA for data plus proprietary REST for control” approach.

Key Facts

• Edge reference application translating proprietary interfaces to OPC UA

• Mapping via WoT Thing Descriptions (JSON-LD) using WoT-Connectivity

• Vendor-neutral configuration through an OPC UA information model (nodeset)

• OPC UA used for both control and data plane

• Deployable as a pre-built Docker container (AMD64, ARM64) on Docker or Kubernetes edge devices

• Provisioning via OPC UA GDS Server Push (Part 12) with certificate-based trust management

• Controlled with two OPC UA methods: CreateAsset(assetName) and DeleteAsset(assetNodeId)

• Extensible by implementing the IAsset interface; conversion tooling available for common engineering formats

Supported southbound interfaces

• Modbus TCP, OPC UA, Rockwell CIP (Ethernet/IP), Beckhoff ADS (TwinCAT), LoRaWAN, Matter, OCPP 1.6J

• Experimental: Siemens S7Comm, Mitsubishi MC Protocol, BACnet, IEC 61850, OCPP 2.1

Applications

• Brownfield integration: connect legacy equipment and expose normalized OPC UA data to SCADA, MES, and cloud platforms

• Multi-protocol consolidation: unify industrial, building, energy, EV charging, and wireless IoT endpoints behind OPC UA

• Faster IIoT rollout: normalize at the edge to reduce cloud-side transformation effort

• Operational governance: configure and manage connectivity consistently through OPC UA using WoT-Connectivity

Want to explore how UA Edge Translator can bridge your assets and protocols into OPC UA in your specific project? Get in contact with us and check out the project here: https://github.com/OPCFoundation/UA-EdgeTranslator