Each year on 14 October, the members of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) celebrate World Standards Day, to pay tribute to the collaborative efforts of thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as International Standards. Standards help to bridge the gap between research and market and increase the probabilities of market uptake of technological innovations. Standardisation has an important role in research and innovation (R&I) investment agendas as it helps paving the way for large-scale deployment of new and strategic technologies.
OPTIMAI aims to create a new European industry ecosystem focused on innovative solutions to optimise production, reduce defects and improve quality to safeguard European industry for generations to come. To reach this goal, standardization plays a huge role. During the project we elaborate and apply existing standards. OPTIMAI partners’ involvement in standardisation organizations is both: a technical benefit, but also in terms of dissemination.
The architecture of the project has been designed using standards like RAMI 4.0 (Reference Architectural Model Industry) and IIRA (Industrial Internet Reference Architecture).
Communication, Data representation and -modelling is a key point during the project. Several partners are member of the FIWARE FOUNDATION, so that the project benefits of a range of open standards that enable the development of portable and interoperable smart solutions.
Communication standards such as OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) companion specifications and MQTT are integrated into the middleware, with the help of specific gateway agents.
In OPTIMAI, QIF 3.0 is used to communicate the results from the measurements during quality control and defect detection processes as it seamlessly defines, organizes, and associates quality information. QIF is a fully digital standard for metrology information.
One of the aims of the OPTIMAI partners is to contribute data models that are used and developed during the project to the Smart Data Models Initiative. The “smart manufacturing domain” data model has not too many contributions so far, so this initiative may benefit from the OPTIMAI project.
In addition, standards are used and applied inside the production lines of the industrial partners: Profinet, Modbus and other bus protocols are used for fast real time communication on the field level. GenICamTM (Generic Interface for Cameras) and MIPI are standards for image acquisition.
With the help of Augmented Reality and Smart Glasses, OPTIMAI aims to create deeper integration between the operator and the intelligent algorithms, so IST/31 UK BSI National Committee on Immersive Technologies which is a growing standard that the results of the hand gesture recognition developed during OPTIMAI may feed into.
The OPTIMAI project benefits greatly from standardization, so the consortium is delighted to join the rest of the world in celebrating World Standards Day on 14 October 2022. You can learn more about World Standards Day here.
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Sources:
International Organization for Standardization: https://www.iso.org/world-standards-day.html
European Commission Research and Innovation News: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/standards-drive-innovation-2021-08-04_en