A biopharmaceutical process control project needed live OPC UA values exposed to a BACnet/IP building automation system across separate networks. Chipkin QuickServer turned a secured, namespace-sensitive OPC UA integration into a working BACnet handoff the customer team could validate directly in the field.
The core need was straightforward: make process values from an OPC UA server visible inside a BACnet/IP environment without rebuilding the upstream controls. The hard part was that the source side used a secured OPC UA endpoint, the destination side lived on a separate network, and the point list still had to line up with the live namespace exactly enough for commissioning to succeed on the first pass.
At a Glance
- Industry: Biopharmaceutical / process control
- Customer: Process control integration team
- Facility type: Biopharmaceutical production facility
- Client role: Building automation and process integration stakeholders
- Project scale: 50+ OPC UA tag points mapped to BACnet/IP objects
- Protocols: From: OPC UA → To: BACnet/IP
- Chipkin product: Chipkin QuickServer Dual Ethernet
- Project start: December 2022
Secured OPC UA process server → Chipkin QuickServer → BACnet/IP BAS
OPC UA to BACnet/IP Challenge
The upstream/server side was a secured OPC UA process control server. The downstream/client side needed those values as BACnet/IP objects inside a building automation workflow. That made this more than a simple protocol bridge. The project needed a dual-network gateway, a correct security setup, and a point-mapping method that matched the live OPC UA namespace precisely enough to avoid commissioning drift.
The most important technical challenge was tag-path alignment. The customer had a spreadsheet of OPC UA paths and a clear list of BACnet destinations, but the project still depended on translating that list into working Node ID references against the live server. In OPC UA work, a tag list that is close is not good enough. The namespace has to match exactly or the connection can look healthy while the values stay empty.
The deployment also had a practical architecture requirement. The customer needed to keep the OPC UA source network and the BACnet destination network separated, which made the Chipkin QuickServer Dual Ethernet platform an important part of the solution rather than a background detail.
Why Chipkin
This was a strong fit for Chipkin because the problem sat at the intersection of protocol security, namespace validation, and building automation delivery. A generic gateway might connect to OPC UA, but that was not the real proof point here. The customer needed a team that could take a spreadsheet of process tags, convert it into a working configuration, and help validate the result on both the OPC UA and BACnet sides.
Chipkin added value by combining the gateway platform with practical engineering work. Mike Arslan built a custom tag-mapping program to accelerate the configuration process, aligned the secure OPC UA connection details with the gateway setup, and helped narrow the project down to the exact namespace differences that mattered in the field.
The Solution
Chipkin configured Chipkin QuickServer as an OPC UA client on the source side and a BACnet/IP server on the destination side. The gateway used separate Ethernet ports for the two networks, which let the project preserve the customer’s required network boundaries while still exposing the needed process values to the BAS.
To speed deployment, Chipkin built the mapping workflow around the customer’s tag spreadsheet instead of forcing a one-point-at-a-time manual translation. That reduced configuration effort and made it easier to compare the intended OPC UA paths to the live server namespace during validation.
Once the live path naming was aligned, the data arrays began to populate correctly and the BACnet side could consume the mapped values as intended. The project then moved from namespace troubleshooting into ordinary commissioning confirmation instead of open-ended integration uncertainty.
Process Control Integration Results
The project delivered a working OPC UA to BACnet/IP handoff for a secured, dual-network process control environment.
Project proof points:
- 50+ process tags were mapped from OPC UA into BACnet/IP objects.
- Dual-network separation was preserved while still exposing live values to the BAS.
- A custom mapping workflow helped convert the customer’s spreadsheet into a usable deployment package.
- The customer confirmed live values after the namespace-alignment step was completed.
The most useful public proof came from the process contractor after the final namespace correction:
“After changing the hyphens to underscores in all the OPC tag paths, the values are now properly showing in the data array.”
— Process contractor lead engineer
Have a Similar OPC-UA-to-BACnet Project?
Need to expose secure OPC UA data to a BACnet/IP BAS without reworking the upstream process controls? Chipkin can help with QuickServer configuration, namespace validation, and cross-network commissioning support. Tell us about your project.