IIC TSN testbed continues successes and brings live demostration to Hannover Messe

Publishes TSN for Flexible Manufacturing Testbed Characteristics of Converged Traffic Types Whitepaper

The Industrial Internet Consortium® (IIC™), the world’s leading organization transforming business and society by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), announced the recent successes of its Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) Testbed for Flexible Manufacturing. The testbed hosted its 10th plugfest in an 18-month timeframe at the Bosch Rexroth facility in Erbach near Frankfurt, Germany and brought together both existing and first-time participants to test devices with a range of TSN capabilities notably utilizing the recently released OPC UC Pub/Sub protocol. Twenty companies participated including chipmakers, network infrastructure and end-device vendors, and testing tool vendors, many of whom compete with each other.

TSN is a deterministic enhancement to Ethernet and a foundational piece of IIoT that enables Ethernet to be used for real-time manufacturing automation and control applications. Since its inception in 2016, the IIC TSN Testbed has advanced its goal of achieving real-time control and synchronization of high-performance machines over a single, standard Ethernet network through vetting technical standards and testing interoperability among vendors. At its most recent plugfests in Austin, TX, during a joint Avnu Alliance and IIC meeting on interoperability in February 2018, and Erbach, Germany, vendors tested time synchronization (IEEE 802.1AS), scheduled traffic flows (IEEE 802.1Qbv) and frame pre-emption (IEEE 802.1Qbu), all key TSN functions. Other key developments include:

Created two TSN demonstrators with equipment from more than 15 companies performing real-time control automation functions over standard Ethernet network infrastructure supporting the new TSN capabilities,
Installed a permanent TSN interoperability rack in Austin with end-devices, network infrastructure and testing equipment for on-going and in-between testing of TSN capabilities by members,
Developed an interoperable diagnostic data application based on the recently finalized OPC UA specification for Publish-Subscribe (Pub/Sub) so devices can communicate key TSN-related status information,
Integrated testing tools from Calnex, Ixia and Spirent into plugfest activities, and
Opened the plugfests to non-member participants to accelerate their TSN deployments.
These latest results will be demonstrated at Hannover Messe (HMI) 2018 in the IIC booth (Hall 8, Booth C24) and in the booths of testbed participants.

Today, the IIC also announced the publication of its TSN for Flexible Manufacturing Testbed Characteristics of Converged Traffic Types whitepaper. The whitepaper describes industrial traffic types that the IIC TSN for Flexible Manufacturing Testbed supports and enhances the traffic type descriptions from the IEEE 802.1Q specification. These types include automation and control traffic types such as isochronous, cyclic and alarms & events as well as other traffic found in typical manufacturing networks.

TSN for Flexible Manufacturing Testbed participants and associated booths where TSN will be demonstrated at Hannover Messe include IIC members Analog Devices (Hall 9, H23), Belden/Hirschmann, Bosch Rexroth (Hall 17, A40), B&R Industrial Automation (Hall 9, Stand D26), Cisco (Hall 6, Stand G30), Fraunhofer FOKUS (Hall 6, Stand D18; Hall 6, Stand D18), GE Transportation, Hilscher (Hall 7, F11), Intel (Hall 7, D12), ISW, Kalycito (Hall 9, Booth A11 in the OPC Foundation Booth), KUKA (Hall 17), Moxa, National Instruments, Pilz (Hall 9), Renesas Electronics, SICK AG (Hall 9), SoC-e, TTTech (Hall 8, A32), Xilinx and IIC liaison Avnu Alliance. Non-member participants include Calnex, Ixia, Kontron, Phoenix Contact (Hall 9, Stand F40), Schneider Electric (Hall 11, Stand C58), Spirent and WAGO.

hordon kim / hordon@icnweb.co.kr