Introduction

This document specifies the metamodel of the Asset Administration Shell.

The general concept and the structure of the Asset Administration Shell is described in IEC 63278-1 (see Figure 1).

2 iec63278 1 overview
Figure 1. Asset Administration Shell and Related Roles (Source: IEC 63278-1)

These are the main specifics and roles defined for the Asset Administration Shell:

  • an Asset Administration Shell has an association to an asset,

  • an Asset Administration Shell provides an interface or several interfaces,

  • an Asset Administration Shell lists one or several submodels,

  • an Asset Administration Shell responsible creates and governs the Asset Administration Shell,

  • an Asset Administration Shell user application accesses the information of the Asset Administration Shell via IT interface(s).

  • a Submodel template guides the creation of a submodel following the template,

  • a Submodel template may reference concept dictionaries and ontologies,

  • concept dictionaries and ontologies define the common vocabulary as basis for interoperability,

  • submodels may reference the asset services provided by an asset via an asset integration; further services related to the asset can be referenced.

This document specifies a technology-neutral specification of the information metamodel of the Asset Administration Shell in UML. It serves as the basis for deriving several different formats for exchanging Asset Administration Shells, e.g. for XML, JSON, and RDF.

Figure 2 shows the different ways of exchanging information Asset Administration Shells. This part of the "Specifications of the Asset Administration Shell" series is the basis for all of these types of information exchange.

3 aas info exchange types
Figure 2. Types of Information Exchange via Asset Administration Shells

File exchange (1) is described in detail in Part 5 of this document series.

The API (2) based on the information metamodel specified in this document is specified in Part 2 of the document series "Specification of the Asset Administration Shell" (IDTA-01002) [37].

The I4.0 language (3) is based on the information metamodel specified in this document [47].