OPC is a standard that defines the communication of data between devices from different manufactures.
OPC requires an OPC server that communicates with one or more OPC clients. OPC allows “plug-and-play”, gives benefits as reduces installation time and the opportunity to choose products from different manufactures.
We have different OPC standards:
"Real-time” data (OPC DA),
Historical data (OPC HDA)
Alarm & Event data (OPC AE)
OPC UA
etc.
The organization OPC Foundation maintain the OPC standards.
Problem: Problems with Matrikon Installation? Solution: Try Disabling the Firewall during the installation.
Problem: When starting MatrikonOPC Explorer, I get an error indicating there are no servers installed. Solution: In OPC Explorer select View -> Options from the menu bar. On the General Tab select both OPCEnum and Registry as the Browse Methods.
If you have issues, please contact support@matrikonopc.com.
NI OPC Servers
An alternative to Matrikon is NI OPC Server.
A Demo version is included with "LabVIEW DSC Module" or "LabVIEW Real-Time module". This one can also be downloaded separately.
You can either uses OPC DA or OPC UA. LabVIEW has built-in support for OPC DA using the DataSocket palette. For OPC UA you need the LabVIEW OPC UA toolkit.
Note! OPC communication (OPC DA) using Datasocket is supported only in LabVIEW 32-bit version. Why: OPC foundation does not provide 64 bit binaries of the OPC core redistributables for OPC version 2.0.
For OPC DA you may need to use OPC Tunneller Software. Here are some examples:
OPC Tunneller from MatrikonOPC (30 days free trial)
Cogent DataHub Tunnelling Software (Trial software works only 1 hour, then needs to be restarted)
The LabVIEW OPC UA Toolkit contains the OPC UA API that was formerly part of the LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control (DSC) Module and the LabVIEW Real-Time Module. From the 2017 release, the LabVIEW OPC UA Toolkit becomes a standalone product. The LabVIEW DSC Module and the LabVIEW Real-Time Module no longer contain the OPC UA API. Read more.
Note! When creating OPC Clients: The VIs Write.vi and Read.vi that was previously used in LabVIEW 2016 has been replaced with Multiple Write.vi and Multiple Read.vi.
This means: In LabVIEW 2017 and newer it is recommended to use Multiple Write.vi and Multiple Read.vi instead of Write.vi and Read.vi for new applications. Note that Multiple Write.vi and Multiple Read.vi are slightly more complicated to use.
But if you open previous code in LabVIEW 2017 or newer, it will still work, because the old Write.vi and Read.vi are still included, but hidden in the palette in LabVIEW. You will find them here:
The LabVIEW OPC UA Toolkit contains the OPC UA API that was formerly part of the LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control (DSC) Module and the LabVIEW Real-Time Module. From the 2017 release, the LabVIEW OPC UA Toolkit becomes a standalone product. The LabVIEW DSC Module and the LabVIEW Real-Time Module no longer contain the OPC UA API. Read more.
There are no built-in support for OPC in Visual Studio/C#, so you need to use a 3.part sooftware package. If you only need OPC DA, you can, e.g., use Measurement Studio from National Instruments.
Note! A new Mesurement Studio 2019 (with support for Visual Studio 2019) has "just" been released. Here they have changed the way you implement an OPC Client.
University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) has a site license for LabVIEW and other software from National Instruments, including Measurement Studio. If you are a student or staff at USN, you can freely download and install Measurement Studio and many other software from National Instruments.
For OPC DA you may need to use OPC Tunneller Software. Here are some examples:
OPC Tunneller from MatrikonOPC (30 days free trial)
Cogent DataHub Tunnelling Software (Trial software works only 1 hour, then needs to be restarted)
MATLAB is a tool for technical computing, computation and visualization in an integrated environment. MATLAB is an abbreviation for MATrix LABoratory, so it is well suited for matrix manipulation and problem solving related to Linear Algebra, Modelling, Simulation and Control applications, etc. MATLAB is developed by MathWorks.
In MATLAB you can use the Industrial Communication Toolbox in order to communicate with an OPC Server. The Industrial Communication Toolbox supports both OPC DA and OPC UA.
The “Industrial Communication Toolbox” is a new Toolbox that is included in “MATLAB R2022a” and newer versions of MATLAB.
The previous name was "MATLAB OPC Toolbox", but they have now combined different communication protocols like OPC, Modbus and MQTT into one new Toolbox.
University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) has a site license for MATLAB, including the Industrial Communication Toolbox. If you are a student or staff at USN, you can freely download and install MATLAB and the Industrial Communication Toolbox.
OPC in Python
Both OPC DA and OPC UA libraries are available for Python.
