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ThingsBoard Documentation

Documentation for using ThingsBoard IoT Platform.

OPC-UA Integration


ThingsBoard PE Feature


Only ThingsBoard Professional Edition supports Platform Integrations feature.

See ThingsBoard PE Installation Options to install ThingsBoard PE.

Overview

OPC UA Integration allows you to stream data from the OPC UA server to ThingsBoard and converts the device payloads to the ThingsBoard format.

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Video tutorial

See video tutorial below for step-by-step instruction how to setup OPC-UA Integration.


OPC-UA Integration Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will configure the integration between ThingsBoard and OPC-UA to get the Airconditioners data from the OPC UA C++ Demo Server and allow the user to switch on/off any Airconditioner using the Integration downlink feature.

Prerequisites

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ThingsBoard setup

First, we need to create the Uplink Data converter that will be used for receiving the messages from the OPC UA server. The converter should transform the incoming payload into the required message format. The message must contain the deviceName and deviceType. These fields are used to submit the data to the correct device. If a device cannot not be found, a new device will be created. Here is how the payload from the OPC UA integration will look like:

Payload:

{
    "temperature": "72.15819999999641"
}

Metadata:

{
    "opcUaNode_namespaceIndex": "3",
    "opcUaNode_name": "AirConditioner_1",
    "integrationName": "OPC-UA Airconditioners",
    "opcUaNode_identifier": "AirConditioner_1",
    "opcUaNode_fqn": "Objects.BuildingAutomation.AirConditioner_1"
}

We will take the opcUaNode_name metadata value and map it to the deviceName and set the deviceType as airconditioner.

However, you can use another mapping in your specific use cases.

Also, we will retrieve the values of the temperature, humidity and powerConsumption fields and use them as device telemetries.

Go to the Data Converters and create a new uplink Converter using this function:

var data = decodeToJson(payload);
var deviceName = metadata['opcUaNode_name'];
var deviceType = 'airconditioner';

var result = {
   deviceName: deviceName,
   deviceType: deviceType,
   telemetry: {
   },
   attributes: {
   }
};

if (data.temperature) {
    result.telemetry.temperature = Number(Number(data.temperature).toFixed(2));
}

if (data.humidity) {
    result.telemetry.humidity = Number(Number(data.humidity).toFixed(2));
}

if (data.powerConsumption) {
    result.telemetry.powerConsumption = Number(Number(data.powerConsumption).toFixed(2));
}

if (data.state !== undefined) {
    result.attributes.state = data.state === '1' ? true : false;
}

function decodeToString(payload) {
   return String.fromCharCode.apply(String, payload);
}

function decodeToJson(payload) {
   var str = decodeToString(payload);
   var data = JSON.parse(str);
   return data;
}

return result;

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For sending Downlink messages from the Thingsboard to the OPC UA node, we need to define a downlink Converter.

In general, the output from a Downlink converter should have the following structure:

[{
    "contentType": "JSON",
    "data": "{\"writeValues\":[],\"callMethods\":[{\"objectId\":\"ns=3;s=AirConditioner_1\",\"methodId\":\"ns=3;s=AirConditioner_1.Stop\",\"args\":[]}]}",
    "metadata": {}
}]

Go to Data Converters and create a new downlink Converter using this function:

var data = {
    writeValues: [],
    callMethods: []
};

if (msgType === 'RPC_CALL_FROM_SERVER_TO_DEVICE') {
    if (msg.method === 'setState') {
        var targetMethod = msg.params === 'true' ? 'Start' : 'Stop';
        var callMethod = {
              objectId: 'ns=3;s=' + metadata['deviceName'],
              methodId: 'ns=3;s=' +metadata['deviceName']+'.'+targetMethod,
              args: []
        };
        data.callMethods.push(callMethod);
    }
}

var result = {
    contentType: "JSON",
    data: JSON.stringify(data),
    metadata: {}
};

return result;

This converter will process the RPC command to the device using the method setState and a boolean params value to call the ‘Start’ or ‘Stop’ method of the Airconditioner.

Destination node is detected using the deviceName field of the incoming message metadata.

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OPC-UA Integration

Next, we will create Integration with OPC UA server inside the ThingsBoard. Open the Integrations section and add a new Integration with a type OPC-UA

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Airconditioners Rule Chain

To demonstrate OPC-UA Integration and Rule Engine capabilities, we will create a separate Rule Chain to process the uplink and downlink messages related to the OPC-UA Integration.

Let´s create the Airconditioners Rule Chain.

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Airconditioners Dashboard

To visualize the Airconditioners data and test RPC commands, we will create the Airconditioners dashboard.

Validation

To verify our integration,

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See also

Next steps