Development of a touch-based control system with OPC UA for endurance tests

Miele stands for excep­tional longevity. The consumer research company GfK has confirmed this with survey results. The first-time dura­bility of Miele washing machines is sig­nifi­cantly above the average of other manu­fact­urers. This requires a careful and solid test phase in the first step.

Such an extreme test implies test tools that can be relied upon. This is where the eControl mIO xt and the MDT 2.0 from Sontheim come into play. As hardware, the controler takes control of the test process. It receives signals and forwards commands, using EtherCAT or CAN as the fieldbus interface. The integrated motion sensor effectively saves energy during the endurance test. The Modular Diagnostic Toolchain, MDT 2.0 for short, is integrated on the eControl mIO xt. It defines, visualizes and executes the simulated program runs. In doing so, it uses the OPC UA, ODX and OTX standards. OPC UA enables data exchange between the test bench and the central server. Accordingly, it ensures continuous communication between the field devices and from them to the cloud – in other words, vertical and horizontal communication. The tool provides various options for creating, structuring and executing test bench workflows, based on the industry standard OTX (Open Test Sequence eXchange format) in accordance with ISO 13209. The ODX standard (Open Diagnostic Data Exchange) guarantees reusability of the service for test benches.

This creates a state-of-the-art and platform-independent environment for accessing machine data and performing test bench workflows.