Results, Insights and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds: Time-Sensitive Networking Testbed
1. INTRODUCTION
This article presents information gathered about the Industrial Internet Consortium’ s( IIC) Time Sensitive Networking – Flexible Manufacturing Testbed, commonly known as the TSN Testbed. The information and insights described below were captured in an interview of TSN Testbed lead Paul Didier, Manufacturing Solutions Architect in the IoT SW Group at Cisco, conducted by Joseph Fontaine, VP of Testbed Programs at the IIC.
2. TIME SENSITIVE NETWORKING – FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING TESTBED
Time Sensitive Networking is a new technology that enhances Ethernet, a foundational piece of the Internet of Things( IoT). The IIC’ s TSN Testbed endeavors to apply new TSN technology in a manufacturing system with a wide range of automation and control vendors, to display the new capabilities and value of TSN. Manufacturers are dealing with automation and control systems that make up a large part of the 50 billion things we are trying to connect, and they usually require the pieces and parts and the overall system to be very deterministic in nature.
This deterministic characteristic is important to many industrial automation and control applications for manufacturing in oil and gas, utilities and transportation. TSN is an enhancement of Ethernet( standards IEEE 802.1 and 802.3 comprise what is generally considered Ethernet) to bring more deterministic capabilities to the network. It is enabling more and more devices, applications and systems to use a standard, open, inter-connected network that is the basic concept and driver of the IoT. If manufacturers do not connect things because they are worried about how the network is going to perform, they cannot implement IoT applications. This technology is viewed as a very important enhancement and upgrade to the standard networks to enable the overall Industrial IoT.
The goals of the TSN Testbed are to: 1) Show TSN’ s readiness to accelerate the marketplace and 2) Show the business value of accelerating the adoption of this technology.
3. TESTBED STATUS
The TSN Testbed partners are currently focused on the technical aspects. They have brought in vendors with infrastructure, devices, switches and test equipment, to conduct rigorous testing. They have also developed successful demonstrations. Significantly, much of the effort has been getting various parts of the TSN-enhanced Ethernet to standard interoperate and work together. The end-devices and applications developed by participating vendors will be built into the testbed as soon as the technical interoperability is successful. The resulting manufacturing applications will show the business value.
- 20- January 2017