Part 80: UAFX Overview and Concepts
| Document number | OPC 10000-80 - title and status not confirmed |
|---|---|
| IEC designation | IEC 62541-80 - publication not confirmed |
| Colloquially | Part 80 |
| Group | UAFX |
Part 80 is our understanding of the overview part of the UA Field eXchange series - the extension of OPC UA down to controller-to-controller and controller-to-device communication. The title and whether it is released or still draft are unconfirmed. Part 81 is the confirmed anchor of the series.
What the 80-series is for
Client/server OPC UA is excellent at vertical communication and a poor fit for the field level, where two controllers need to exchange a handful of values every few milliseconds, deterministically, with no session to establish and no browse to perform. The 80-series - UA Field eXchange, universally shortened to UAFX - is the answer: peer-to-peer data exchange built on PubSub, with a standard way to describe the participating devices and to establish, monitor and tear down the connections between them.
The concepts an overview part introduces
The vocabulary the rest of the series uses is worth learning even if you read no further. An automation component is the addressable unit of a UAFX system - a controller, a drive, an IO block - which contains one or more functional entities, the parts of it that actually produce or consume data. A connection manager is the component responsible for setting up communication between functional entities, driven by a configuration describing each communication flow and its endpoints. Servers advertise these capabilities with the codes FXAC for the automation component model and FXCM for the connection manager model.
What is confirmed, and what is not
The three released UAFX information models are confirmed: the automation component, connection manager and data namespaces, all at version 1.00.04 published 2026-07-22, and their documentation all points at Part 81. What we could not confirm is the exact title of Part 80 and whether it is a released part or still in draft. So treat the concepts on this page as sound - they are readable from the released models - and treat the part number and title as unverified.
Deployment reality
The standard exists and the models are published. Field deployment is early: at version 1.00.04 the models are still in their first major version, and we are not aware of an open-source UAFX implementation to test against, which means interoperability work happens in vendor pilots and interoperability workshops rather than on a workbench. Plan a UAFX project as an early-adopter project with vendor engagement, not as a commodity integration.
What it defines
| Concept | What it is |
|---|---|
| UA Field eXchange | The 80-series extension of OPC UA to field-level peer-to-peer exchange, built on PubSub rather than on sessions and services. |
| Automation component | The addressable unit of a UAFX system - a controller, drive or IO block - modelled as an object with an asset identity and one or more functional entities. |
| Functional entity | The part of an automation component that produces or consumes data. Connections are established between functional entities, not between whole devices. |
| Connection manager | The component that establishes, monitors and releases communication between functional entities, working from a configuration rather than from hand-edited PubSub parameters. |
| Communication flow | One configured exchange between endpoints, described as configuration data so a tool can set it up and an operator can inspect it. |
| Relationship to PubSub | UAFX rides on Part 14. The wire format, the security model and the transports are PubSub; UAFX adds the device model and the connection lifecycle above it. |
| FXAC and FXCM | The server capability codes advertising the automation component model and the connection manager model, so network discovery can find UAFX participants. |
| Part 81 as the confirmed anchor | The information models' own documentation points at Part 81, making it the one part of the series whose role is verified. Cite it in preference to this one. |
Do you need to read it?
Architects evaluating whether OPC UA can replace a fieldbus for controller-to-controller traffic, and machine builders whose customers are starting to ask about it. Read the concepts here, then work from Part 81 and Part 14, which are the two documents in this area whose content is confirmed.
Traps that trace back to this part
- The title and the released-versus-draft status of this part are unconfirmed, so do not cite Part 80 in a specification on the strength of this page. Cite Part 81 and Part 14 instead, and confirm the rest against the publisher's own current reference documentation.
- UAFX and time-sensitive networking are not the same thing and not a package. TSN is a set of Ethernet mechanisms in the network; UAFX is an application and connection layer above PubSub. You can run UAFX over ordinary switched Ethernet, and you can run TSN under traffic that has nothing to do with UAFX. A vendor answer that treats them as one product is worth unpicking.
- The models are at 1.00.04 and moving roughly annually - 1.00.02 in February 2024, 1.00.03 in July 2025, 1.00.04 in July 2026. On a first major version with that cadence, pin the exact model version in your design documents and expect to revisit it.
Last verified 7 September 2026 against OPC UA 1.05.07. The specification parts themselves are published by the OPC Foundation. OPC UA Connect is an educational resource and is not affiliated with the OPC Foundation.