In third-party OPC, what are the abbreviations for OPC?

OPC (OLE for Process Control, OLE used for process control) is an industrial standard, and the international organization that manages this standard is the OPC Foundation; the OPC Foundation currently has over 220 members. Companies located around the world, including those involved in all major automation control systems, instrumentation, and process control systems in the world.

OPC stands for OLE for Process Control, and its emergence has created a bridge between Windows-based applications and field process control applications. In the past, in order to access data from field devices, every application software developer had to write dedicated interface functions. Due to the wide variety of field devices and continuous product upgrades, this often imposes a heavy workload on users and software developers. Usually, this also fails to meet the actual requirements of work; system integrators and developers urgently need plug-and-play device drivers that are efficient, reliable, open, and interoperable. Under these circumstances, the OPC standard was developed. The OPC standard is based on Microsoft’s OLE technology; it was developed by providing a set of standard OLE/COM interfaces. OLE 2 technology is used in OPC technology, and the OLE standard enables the exchange of documents, graphics, and other objects between multiple microcomputers. COM is the abbreviation for Component Object Model, and it forms the basis of all OLE mechanisms. COM is a standard developed to achieve language-independent objects; it defines objects under Windows as independent units that can be accessed without being restricted by programs. This standard allows two applications to communicate through object-oriented interfaces, without needing to know how the other application was created. For example, users can use the C++ language to create a Windows object that supports an interface through which they can access the various functions provided by that object. Users can write programs to access these objects using Visual Basic, C, Pascal, Smalltalk, or other languages. Under the Windows NT4.0 operating system, the COM specification was extended to allow access to objects located outside the local machine; objects used by an application could be distributed across a network. This extension of COM is known as DCOM (Distributed COM). Through DCOM technology and OPC standards, it is entirely possible to create an open, interoperable control system software. OPC adopts a client/server model, assigning the task of developing access interfaces to hardware manufacturers or third-party vendors, who provide them to users in the form of OPC servers. This resolves the conflicts between software and hardware manufacturers, enables system integration, and enhances the openness and interoperability of the system. OPC servers typically support two types of access interfaces, which provide access mechanisms for different programming language environments. These two interfaces are: Automation interface ； Custom interface. Automated interfaces are typically standard interfaces defined for script-based programming languages, and client applications for OPC servers can be developed using programming languages such as Visual Basic, Delphi, and PowerBuilder. Custom interfaces, on the other hand, are standard interfaces designed specifically for advanced programming languages such as C++. OPC has now become the default solution for system interconnection in the industrial sector, simplifying industrial monitoring programming and allowing users to avoid the troubles associated with communication protocols. Any provider of automation software solutions that cannot offer comprehensive OPC support will inevitably be left behind by history.

OLE for Process Control