Research on Industrial Communication System Optimization Based on Modbus and OPC UA Protocols: Building a Smart and Interconnected Industrial Future

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Nov 08, 2025

Upgrading Industrial Communication to Drive Intelligent Manufacturing Development
Against the backdrop of the global manufacturing industry's accelerated transformation towards intelligence and digitalization, industrial communication systems have become a crucial component of enterprise competitiveness. Whether it's signal transmission between devices or data interaction across systems, the stability and compatibility of communication protocols directly impact production efficiency and data reliability.
Currently, Modbus and OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture), as the most representative communication protocols in the industrial field, are undergoing a revolutionary process of convergence and optimization. Through their complementary applications, enterprises can build an efficient and reliable communication bridge between traditional automation systems and the modern Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

From Modbus to OPC UA: The Technological Evolution of Industrial Communication
Since its introduction by Modicon in the 1970s, the Modbus protocol has become the "universal language" of industrial fieldbus communication due to its openness, simplicity, and stability.
Modbus supports multiple communication methods, including serial communication (Modbus RTU/ASCII) and Ethernet communication (Modbus TCP/IP), and is widely used in PLCs, sensors, frequency converters, and other devices. However, with the rapid increase in the number of industrial devices and the increasing complexity of system architectures, the traditional Modbus protocol has gradually shown limitations in data structure scalability, security, and cross-platform communication.

The new generation OPC UA protocol was developed to address these challenges.
OPC UA not only supports cross-platform data access but also features object-oriented data modeling, built-in security mechanisms, and internet-level communication capabilities. Compared to Modbus, OPC UA achieves more intelligent interoperability across different brands and systems, providing a solid foundation for enterprises to achieve data integration "from the shop floor to the cloud."

Convergence Optimization: Bridging the Last Mile of Industrial Data

In practical industrial applications, many enterprises still primarily use Modbus for their equipment systems, while upper-layer MES, SCADA, or cloud platforms tend to use OPC UA for data management.
This creates a communication "gap"—device-side data is difficult to seamlessly connect to the information layer. To solve this problem, "Modbus and OPC UA convergence optimization" has become a key research direction in industrial communication systems.

Research and practice show that by establishing a Modbus-OPC UA gateway or protocol conversion server, the following optimization goals can be achieved:

Data Interoperability: Achieving automatic mapping between Modbus slave device data and OPC UA server nodes.
Security Enhancement: Utilizing OPC UA's encryption and authentication mechanisms to compensate for Modbus's shortcomings in the security layer.
Unified Management: Supporting data transfer via OPC UA. UA clients access Modbus device data for centralized monitoring.
Performance Optimization: Data caching and batch communication mechanisms reduce network load and improve response speed.
Furthermore, the research team has optimized the system to address communication latency, data packet loss, and protocol compatibility issues. For example, employing a multi-threaded asynchronous communication mechanism and data compression algorithms effectively improves communication efficiency in large-scale device networks.

Application Prospects: A Key Connection Layer for Smart Manufacturing
The communication architecture based on the integration of Modbus and OPC UA has demonstrated broad application prospects in multiple industries:
In smart factories, it enables end-to-end data interconnection from underlying sensor data acquisition to upper-layer cloud platform analysis;
In energy monitoring systems, OPC can be used... The UA standard interface enables unified management of multi-brand equipment.
In the petrochemical, metallurgical, and water treatment industries, this communication architecture ensures high system stability and security, supporting 24/7 continuous operation.
More importantly, this optimization research not only solves the pain point of "coexistence of old and new protocols" but also provides a feasible path for enterprises to gradually move towards the Industrial Internet and digital twins.

Conclusion: Towards a New Era of Interconnected Industry

The evolution of industrial communication protocols is not only a technological innovation but also a fundamental engineering project for intelligent manufacturing.
Through the integration and optimization research of Modbus and OPC UA protocols, enterprises can embrace a more secure, intelligent, and open communication architecture while maintaining the investment value of traditional equipment.
In the future, with the further development of 5G, edge computing, and AI technologies, industrial communication systems will no longer be isolated information channels but will become true "data neural networks," enabling factory equipment to achieve comprehensive perception, real-time response, and self-optimization.
In this wave of industrial intelligence, the integration of Modbus and OPC UA will undoubtedly continue to play a bridging and core role, driving global manufacturing towards a more efficient, interconnected, and intelligent new era.

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Research on Industrial Communication System Optimization Based on Modbus and OPC UA Protocols: Building a Smart and Interconnected Industrial Future