Single common conformance test plan to be available for IEC/IEEE 60802 TSN profile for Industrial Automation

The focus of the collaboration is to work together towards a jointly agreed and owned test plan for the industrial automation market

The Avnu Alliance, CC-Link Partner Association, ODVA, OPC Foundation, and PROFIBUS & PROFINET International jointly announce that they are collaborating to develop a single conformance test plan for the IEEE/IEC 60802 Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) profile for Industrial Automation.

The test plan will be used as a base test by all the participating organizations and made available to the broader Industrial Automation ecosystem. This collaboration contributes towards end user confidence that 60802 conformant devices from different manufacturers which support different automation protocols will coexist reliably at the TSN level on shared networks, including with devices using TSN for applications other than automation.

The focus of the collaboration is to work together towards a jointly agreed and owned test plan for the industrial automation market. This formal collaboration provides value by creating a structure in which all these organizations can work together and exchange ideas towards the end goal of interoperability and coexistence on open, standard networks for all protocols, without needing to establish a separate, formal organization. For convenience, the collaboration activities will be referred to as “TIACC” (TSN Industrial Automation Conformance Collaboration).

The TIACC marks a commitment by these organizations to develop an interoperable ecosystem of devices from different manufacturers to comply with the IEC/IEEE Standards Association 60802 profile and enable end-users to confidently deploy these devices on open, standard networks. The goal is to have the final version of the single, shared test plan available soon after the IEC/IEEE 60802 profile is published.

“Avnu’s purpose and mission is to transform standard networks to enable support for many time sensitive applications and protocols in an open, interoperable manner. This collaboration among organizations will be critically important to facilitating coexistence of multiple workloads and protocols according to IEEE 60802 on a network, while leveraging foundational network interoperability that is used across industries,” said Greg Schlechter, Avnu Alliance President. “We are committed to working with the industries to enable an interoperable ecosystem of devices that allow end users to confidently deploy on open, standard, and converged networks.”

“The creation of the Connected Industries of the future requires different systems and devices to communicate in order to deliver the necessary process transparency required. This is a core principle for the CLPA and is at the root of why the organization was founded. This is why we are delighted to be part of the TIACC and look forward to supporting the creation of a unified, common test plan for TSN-compatible products. By doing so, we can help further boost the adoption of futureproof technologies for smart manufacturing,” said Manabu Hamaguchi, Global Director at CLPA.

“EtherNet/IP users will be able to take advantage of the benefits afforded by 60802 TSN of enhanced network performance, higher utilization, and guaranteed network access for multiple time-critical applications with different priorities. ODVA’s participation in TIACC will ensure that the full potential of 60802 TSN coexistence is realized by end users to help make Industry 4.0 and IIoT a reality,” said Dr. Al Beydoun, President and Executive Director at ODVA.

“OPC UA is a secure, vendor-independent communication solution that fully scales from the field to the cloud and offers semantic interoperability. Other underlying IT infrastructure such as Ethernet TSN and the IEC/IEEE 60802 TSN Profile for Industrial Automation open up further applications for the market. We believe this conformance collaboration is an important contribution to preparing and delivering streamlined and effective conformance testing and certification to the industry in collaboration with other SDOs,” said Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation.

“At PI we are taking conformance testing very seriously. It’s our belief, that thought-out testing ensures cross-vendor interoperability. That’s why we invested huge efforts in our test system in recent years. With this joint initiative we are taking the next step towards converged networks utilizing TSN, giving our users the confidence in the future-readiness of PROFINET. This collaboration is a huge milestone on the way of the digital transformation,” said Karsten Schneider, Chairperson of PROFIBUS and PROFINET International (PI).

Learn more about the TSN Industrial Automation Conformance Collaboration #TIACC here: www.tiacc.net

Avnu
Avnu Alliance is a community creating an interoperable ecosystem servicing the precise timing and low latency requirements of diverse applications using open standards through certification. The Alliance, in conjunction with other complimentary standards bodies and alliances, provides a united network foundation for use in professional AV, automotive, industrial control and consumer segments. To learn more about Avnu Alliance, visit www.avnu.org.

For more information, contact:
PR@avnu.org

CC-Link Partner Association
For more than 20 years, the CC-Link Partner Association has been a global organization dedicated to the development of the CC-Link family of open automation networks. These are high-speed, high-performance open industrial network technologies that enable devices from numerous manufacturers to communicate resulting in fast, deterministic control systems. The CLPA’s key technology is CC-Link IE TSN, the world’s first open industrial Ethernet to combine gigabit bandwidth with Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). Currently the CLPA has over 4,000 member companies globally and 2,500 compatible products available from 360 manufacturers. 30 million devices using CLPA technologies are in use worldwide. For more information, please visit https://www.cc-link.org/.

For more information, contact:
Satoshi Kawana
Kawana.Satoshi@cc-link.org

ODVA
ODVA is an international standards development and trade organization with members from the world’s leading automation suppliers. ODVA’s mission is to advance open, interoperable information and communication technologies for industrial automation. Its standards include the Common Industrial Protocol or “CIP™,” ODVA’s media independent network protocol – and industrial communication technologies including EtherNet/IP, DeviceNet and others. For interoperability of production systems and their integration with other systems, ODVA embraces the adoption of commercial-off-the-shelf, standard Internet and Ethernet technologies as a guiding principle. This principle is exemplified by EtherNet/IP – today’s leading industrial Ethernet network. Visit ODVA online at www.odva.org.

For more information, contact:
Steve Fales
sfales@odva.org

OPC Foundation
Since 1996, the OPC Foundation has facilitated the development and adoption of the OPC information exchange standards. As both advocate and custodian of these specifications, the Foundation’s mission is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability in their manufacturing and automation assets. The OPC Foundation is dedicated to providing the best specifications, technology, process, and certification to achieve multivendor, multiplatform, secure, reliable, interoperability for moving data and information from the embedded world to the enterprise cloud. The Foundation serves over 860 members worldwide in the Industrial Automation, IT, IoT, IIoT, M2M, Industrie 4.0, Building Automation, machine tools, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and Smart Energy sectors. For more information about the OPC Foundation, please visit www.opcfoundation.org.

For more information, contact:
Stefan Hoppe
Stefan.Hoppe@OPCFoundation.org

PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI)
PI is a wide spread automation community in the world represented by 25 different Regional PI Associations and is responsible for PROFIBUS and PROFINET, the two leading industrial communications protocols covering all industries. The common interest of PI’s global network of vendors, developers, system integrators and end users lies in promoting, supporting and using PROFIBUS and PROFINET. Regionally and globally over 1,500 member companies are working closely together around the world to the best automation possible. The organization’s global influence and reach is unmatched in the world of automation. For more information, please visit the website at www.profibus.com.

For more information, contact:
Barbara Weber
Barbara.Weber@profibus.com