Towards interoperability between OPC UA and OCF

The paper deals with the interoperability issue inside Industry 4.0. This last features the application in industrial contexts of modern Information & Communication Technology (ICT) concepts, such as Internet of Things (IoT). Current literature presents several proposals aimed to improve interoperability between reference communication standards of Industry 4.0 and IoT ecosystems. Among them, several research activities deal with interoperability between OPC UA international standard (IEC 62541) and IoT. The paper proposes a novel solution towards interoperability between OPC UA and IoT, focusing on the integration of OPC UA with the emerging specifications for the IoT defined by Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF). The proposal is original as interoperability issues between OPC UA and OCF are not treated at the moment. The proposal may also have a potential impact on the current definition of OCF specifications, as it may contribute to the current definition of an OCF Bridge Device which at the moment does not allow interoperability between OCF and OPC UA.