Migrationskonzept zur Einführung von Ethernet TSN in die Feldebene

Networks are a core element of many industrial and automation systems at present. Often these networks transport time- and safety-critical messages that control physical processes. Thus, timely and guaranteed delivery is an essential property of networks for such critical systems. Over the past decade, a variety of network solutions have evolved to satisfy said properties. However, these solutions are largely incompatible with each other and many system architects are forced to deploy different solutions in parallel due to their different capabilities. IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is a standardization group that enhances IEEE networking standards, most prominently Ethernet-based networks, with said properties and has the unique potential to evolve as a cross-industry mainstream networking technology. In this survey paper, we give an overview of TSN in industrial communication and automation systems and discuss specific TSN standards and projects in detail as well as their applicability to various industries.

A Perspective on IEEE Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communication and Automation Systems

Data-driven services (optimization or condition monitoring) are often deployed using cloud architectures. The shop floor itself becomes more and more flexible and reconfigurable using modular machine design and Plug and Play services. These industrial use cases induce additional requirements to communication systems: scalable real-time communication from sensor to cloud as well as seamless and automatic network configuration on the shop floor. A promising data plane technology for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is IEEE 802.1 Ethernet TSN that allows convergent and time sensitive communication. The configuration of the IIoT is complex because the IIoT is often large, growing and changing over time and often consists of heterogeneous network domains because of the brownfield and manifold requirements from the applications. Software-defined Networking (SDN) has the potential to reduce the engineering effort and to increase the operation efficiency (monitoring, diagnosis, reconfiguration) of heterogeneous IIoT. SDN Control Planes can be implemented as physical-central, logic-central, distributed or hybrid architecture. The different architectures have specific advantages and disadvantages regarding QoS, throughput and engineering efforts. A key role takes the East-West interface that handles the communication between distributed SDN Controllers. SDN Data Plane agents can help to manage legacy Data Planes with SDN. A TSN Nano Profile with inverse and cooperative operating Time Aware Shaper is a migration solution to upgrade legacy communication controllers with TSN functions. The disadvantages are less throughput and increased latency for acyclic traffic.

Investigation on a distributed SDN control plane architecture for heterogeneous time sensitive networks

The Smart Factory Web (SFW) is a platform that connects Smart Factories over a network to enable flexible sharing and management of resources, assets and inventory to maximize production and efficiency. In order to become part of the Smart Factory Web, network participants describe not only their products, but also the factory capabilities to order to improve factory-to-factory collaboration. A Smart Factory Web Portal (SFWP) enables secure data and service integration in cross-site application scenarios as well as ‘plug & work’ functions for devices, machines, and data analytics software by applying industrial standards, Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA), and Automation Markup Language (AutomationML or AML for short). OPC UA serves as a comprehensive and secure communication protocol from the machine level into the cloud. A Cloud Coupler on the shop floor publishes the availability of a factory and selected process data in the SFWP. Customers or even smart machines can use this information to make decisions for placing an order and track their orders in real time. In order to simplify the setup of the connection to the cloud and minimize the commissioning time the cloud coupler also aggregates all OPC UA servers on devices in the factory into a single OPC UA aggregated server address space. In this paper an architecture is proposed which uses cloud coupler and plug and work techniques to make a new or retrofit factory available in a SFW to share capability information towards a new marketplace for manufacturing. It is shown that the integration efforts are decreased but also the use of standards reduces the effort to define interfaces.

Cloud-based Plug and Work architecture of the IIC Testbed Smart Factory Web

The digitalization of production is a strategic goal in the automation industry, though visions and industrial reality remain far apart. A key issue is that today’s segmented communication architecture based on fieldbus networks does not fulfill the future requirements. Converged networks connecting IT and OT systems while maintaining deterministic guarantees for real-time communication are required instead. Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) in the context of IEEE 802.1 Ethernet is a key enabling technology for converged networks. The transition from current communication architectures towards converged networks will not be a disruptive change, but rather an evolutionary process involving many steps. In this paper, an analysis of different dimensions of this transition process and their evolutionary steps is presented. Potential migration paths from current to future production architectures and resulting intermediate brownfield scenarios are identified and analyzed with a focus on their communication architectures.

TSN-based Converged Industrial Networks: Evolutionary Steps and Migration Paths

A Migration Strategy for Profinet Toward Ethernet TSN-Based Field-Level Communication: An Approach to Accelerate the Adoption of Converged IT/OT Communication