With SmartServer Pi 4.2 and higher, OPC UA is a Beta release.

AVEVA Edge (InTouch Edge) software is used to develop HMI/SCADA projects, which can be deployed anywhere. This powerful software tool supports OPC UA client communications with the OPC UA server on a SmartServer.

This section describes how to add a new AVEVA Edge project, build a simple HMI-graphic page connecting to a SmartServer OPC UA Server, and monitor a datapoint on a device. For more information about AVEVA Edge, go to https://sw.aveva.com/monitor-and-control/hmi-supervisory-and-control/intouch-edge-hmi.

This section consists of the following:

Creating an AVEVA Edge Project

To create an AVEVA Edge project, follow the procedure below.

1. Open the SmartServer Configuration page as described in Accessing the SmartServer IoT Configuration Page. The Network tab appears as the default SmartServer Configuration page. Once the network settings are configured for the SmartServer system, then the System tab will appear as the default.
   
   
   SmartServer IoT Network tab
   
   
   SmartServer IoT System tab
   
   
   For SmartServer Pi, open the SmartServer Configuration page as described in Accessing the SmartServer Pi Configuration Page. The Configuration view that appears depends on your cache data. As needed, click the SmartServer IoT tab. The System tab (top) will appear as the default as shown below.
   
   
   SmartServer Pi System tab
   
   
2. Click the OPC UA tab. 
   
   
   SmartServer IoT OPC UA disabled status
   
   
   SmartServer Pi OPC UA disabled status
   
   

3. Enable the OPC UA server option.
   
   
   SmartServer IoT OPC UA enabled status
   
   
   SmartServer Pi OPC UA enabled status
   
   

4. Click Update.
   
   
5. For subscription-based monitoring (event-driven) at the OPC UA client, the Monitored and Polled datapoint setting needs to be enabled on the SmartServer CMS Datapoint Properties widget. See Defining Datapoint Properties for more information.
   
   This setting applies to datapoints on BACnet, LON (using IMM), and Modbus devices. For datapoints on LON devices using DMM, if polling is not enabled for the datapoint, the SmartServer automatically enables event-driver updates.
   
   
   
   
6. Launch AVEVA Edge and add a new Project. In the example below, a new project “Windows InTouch Edge HMI 500 tags” is added that supports a maximum of 500 tags.
   
   
   
   
7. Select the Insert tab from the main menu and add a new OPC UA Connection.
   
   
   
   

8. Enter a name for the connection in the Connection Name field and SmartServer OPC UA end point in the End point field.
   

   The OPC UA endpoint URL that is used by the OPC UA client to communicate with the OPC UA server is opc.tcp://smartserver-xxxxxxx.echelon.echcorp.com:55000/UA/echopcua-server where xxxxxxx is the SmartServer's install code.
   
   
   
   

9. Click Test Connection to verify the communication between the AVEVA Edge client and the SmartServer OPC UA server.
   
   
10. Select the Insert tab and add a new OPC UA Client worksheet. 
    
    
    
    
11. Link the OPC UA connection to the client and update the connection field by selecting the previously created OPC UA connection. Use the dropdown connection list to view all the available connections. 
    
    
    
    
12. Double-click an empty Browse Path box to launch the OPC UA Browser.
    
    
    
    

13. Select the datapoint to be monitored from the UA Browser and click OK.
    
    
    nvoLuxLevel network variable is selected, the datatype is UInt16 (unsigned long), and the current value is 48
    
    

14.  Add a new tag by assigning a Tag Name and clicking Yes.
    
    
    Luxlevel tag name is added
    
    

15. Add a new screen by selecting the Graphics tab, right-clicking the Screens folder, and defining screen attributes.
    
    
    
    

16. Click OK.
    
    

17. Select Text Box to add a new text box and set Tag/Expression to the previously created tag (Luxlevel in this example). Test the tag in the Database Spy area by entering the tag name in the Tag/Expression column. The Value column will display the current value of the network variable.
    
    

    
    
    

18. Save all files and click Run to run the project.
    
    
    
    

Using the OPC UA Server as_string

AVEVA Edge supports the following data types:

• Boolean
• Integer
• Real
• String

For Structure or Union Extension Object, e.g. SNVT_switch, the SmartServer OPC UA server includes an as_string property type (as shown below) that will display the structure as a string data type at the AVEVA Edge client. The current AVEVA Edge release does not support Extension Object.

Using the OPC UA Server Preset Feature

SmartServer IoT release 2.8 and higher includes a preset feature that allows preset values to be used at the OPC UA client. The example below shows the preset value Off for a SNVT_switch network variable type (string data type).

Using AVEVA Edge On-demand Read (Poll)

At the OPC UA client worksheet (shown in the figure below), click Advanced to display the Advanced dialog box (shown below). By default, the OPC UA client worksheet Enable subscription setting is "true" (non-zero). In this scenario, the client subscribes to the server nodes so that it can receive notifications when the node values change. For on-demand, read only operations at the client side, it is not necessary to enable Monitored/Polled on the SmartServer CMS Datapoint Properties widget.

Set the Enable subscription setting to 0 and configure the read trigger settings. Please refer to the AVEVA Edge help file for more information.

OPC UA client worksheet advanced settings