UniversalAutomation.Org (UAO) reported June 22 that it’s continuing to experience strong membership growth, which includes adding two of its newest members, U.S.-based Clemson University and HPE. Each is expected to help the independent, nonprofit organization further its goal of open, software-defined automation in engineering research and training and in IT/OT infrastructure and digital transformation, respectively.

“I’m very pleased to welcome HPE and Clemson University as members,” says Benoît Thooris, president of UAO. “These latest additions, along with our more than 110 members from academia and industry, demonstrate that together we’re contributing to transforming industry toward open, software-defined automation.”

Founded by nine companies in 2021, UAO facilitates close collaboration between universities and industrial companies, as well as other research institutions. The curriculum provided by UAO on the IEC 61499 automation standard also supports teaching.

"Clemson University is excited to join UAO because it aligns with our vision of preparing the next generation of engineers, while advancing research and industry collaboration in smart manufacturing,” says Saeed Farahani, assistant professor at Clemson’s School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering and associate director of its Composites Center. “Open automation provides a pathway toward more flexible, scalable and innovative industrial systems, and we look forward to contributing to this growing global ecosystem."

Likewise, HPE’s enterprise technology provides its customers with AI, cloud, and networking solutions. This expansion strengthens its ecosystem in an area that’s critical for open software-defined automation.

“Interoperability, flexibility and IT/OT convergence are key priorities today, and we’re seeing strong demand for open, software-defined automation,” adds Thomas Elsholz, distinguished technologist for OEM Compute at HPE. “Joining UAO is a natural step, leveraging HPE’s infrastructure and global services as a platform for IEC 61499-based open automation. This helps customers accelerate innovation and reduce vendor lock-in, while enabling future-proof architectures. At the same time, it fosters collaboration with leading industry and academia and strengthens the open industrial automation ecosystem.”

UAO gives its members an independent automation layer for OT components, managed as Guarded Source, free of licensing fees. Unlike other approaches such as Namur’s NOA or OPC UA, UAO reports its approach enables a fundamental separation of software from automation hardware such as PLCs. This creates the conditions for open, software-defined automation architectures and more flexible automation, for example, based on IEC 61499. Code created using this approach can be reused across vendors and deployed in a decentralized way on various OT components. Also, UAO’s hardware and software lifecycles are clearly decoupled from each another, which simplifies integrating new systems and subsequent migrations.