As more O-PAS applications pass their field tests, developers and suppliers plan to offer more products that are certified as compliant with the standard. This will let them assemble systems more easily and quickly, and be secure in the knowledge that all of their components are interoperable.
For example, the Coalition for Open Process Automation (COPA) group of companies recently launched their COPA 500 kit for entry-level brownfield replacement or greenfield systems with 100-900 I/O (Figure 1).
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“Last year, we began selling devices with the O-PAS architecture. Now, COPA 500 brings systemness to them, so users can deploy these components as one unified solution that’s resilient, secure and manageable,” says Bob Hagenau, CEO at CPlane and co-leader at COPA. “Traditional, proprietary products can achieve systemness, but they all have to be from the same vendor. However, if a user has an open control system containing devices from multiple vendors, it’s been a problem for them to be managed as a single system. COPA and CPlane have created a unified system with multiple vendor components built on O-PAS.”
The COPA 500 kit includes:
- I/O modules from Phoenix Contact or R. Stahl that are O-PAS conformant, DCN I/O variants;
- An O-PAS distributed control node (DCN), such as ASRock’s industrial personal computer (IPC) that runs software function blocks and containerized software;
- A management node that O-PAS labels as an advanced computing platform (ACP), in this case, Supermicro’s IPC that provides added computational power for supervisory and historian functions;
- Cisco’s industrial Ethernet switches;
- 24-V power supplies from Phoenix Contact;
- Software-based virtual PLC/DCS control functions from Codesys that are based on the 10-part IEC 61131 regulatory-control standard; and
- Ignition web-based SCADA/HMI software from Inductive Automation.
Possible PLC, DCS replacement
“As an entry-level device, COPA 500 could replace a PLC or small DCS, and then scale up by adding more I/O to communicate with more sensors, actuators and other devices,” says Don Bartusiak, former co-chair of OPAF and president of COPA-member and system integrator Collaborative Systems Integration Inc. “COPA 500 can support P&ID or sequential control, advanced regulatory control, model-predictive control (MPC) or batch processes management, including NAMUR’s Module Type Package (MTP) process orchestration layer applications.”
In fact, Bartusiak reports that COPA 500 is one configuration of a scalable platform that can include more and different types of I/O, more DCNs, and more ACP capacity, which users will be able to buy as a product, and configure as needed thanks to swappable and/or redundant I/O, DCN, ACP and network devices. Instances of the COPA Control Platform will be sold by system integrators like Wood, Eosys or Burrow Global, and be supported by them using CPlane’s systems management and orchestration software.
“O-PAS is starting to be used for on-production systems. It’s no longer just in testbeds and laboratory systems,” adds Bartusiak. “And, now that it’s moving into production service, and end users, suppliers and system integrators can see it in service, this should help reinvigorate participation on the standards development side. This is important because this work isn’t finished, and not all of the capabilities we need are done yet. We must optimize the learning rate of the entire OPA business ecosystem to manage the transformation and assure its sustained success.”
Likewise, COPA 500 is also being used by one of COPA’s system integrators, Wood, as a part of its own O-PAS testbed that was launched in October 2024. It includes a couple of DCN types for running applications, such as ASRock’s IPC or Supermicro’s server-class IPC, along with Stahl’s general-purpose or intrinsically safe (IS) I/O modules, Phoenix Contact’s Ethernet switches and power supplies, Ignition SCADA software, Codesys control software, and CPlane’s orchestration software (Figure 2).
“Our full testbed employs the IEC 61131 standard for developing traditional programming and IEC 61499 standard to adapt to new paradigms of control,” says Brad Mozisek, program manager of Wood’s OPA Center of Excellence. “IEC 61131 is for polling base systems running cyclical operations, and is similar to most PLC and DCS systems, while IEC 61499 is for event-driven, processes that only relay data when their values change.”
Micro-nuclear option
To help develop and demonstrate small, modular reactor controls, Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Engineering Dept. reports it selected COPA 500 with O-PAS as its testbed for electrical heaters. These devices are adjusted based on control rod positions, which regulate reaction rates in nuclear reactors. These standardized, micro-style reactors operate between 1 kW to 5 MW.
“We were seeking the most appropriate control system, and determined that O-PAS best fit the needs of our research initiatives because it had strong cybersecurity and great adaptability,” says Timothy Triplett, control consultant at TAMU and president of Coherent Technologies Inc. “We picked COPA 500 as the best starting point for our research because O-PAS is standards-based, provides the latest cybersecurity for evolving threats, and supports a variety of commercially available components. The standard is also reliable due to its software-defined redundancy, and also supports the multiple computing layers that users often need for high-data computing tasks. This combination lets the testbed evaluate all critical factors for scaling reactors for commercial applications. We can also use it for control via digital twins, and perform rapid iterations with standard tools, such as Codesys, Python and Matlab software.”
