Collaboration on time-sensitive networking testbed announced

National Instruments (NI), Bosch Rexroth, Cisco, Intel, Kuka, Schneider Electric and TTTech are collaborating with the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) on a time-sensitive networking testbed.

By Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) February 23, 2016

National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI), Bosch Rexroth, Cisco, Intel, KUKA, Schneider Electric and TTTech are collaborating with the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) to develop the world’s first time-sensitive networking (TSN) testbed. The goal of this testbed is to display the value of new Ethernet IEEE 802 standards, referred to as TSN, in an ecosystem of manufacturing applications. TSN powers a standard, open network infrastructure supporting multivendor interoperability and integration with new guaranteed performance and delivery. The technology can support real-time control and synchronization, for example between motion applications and robots, over a single Ethernet network. At the same time, TSN can support other common traffic found in manufacturing applications, driving convergence between information technology (IT) and operational technologies (OT).

Previously, many real-time control applications were deployed using nonstandard network infrastructure or unconnected networks that leave the devices and data much harder to access, if accessible at all. TSN is designed to drive convergence and increased connectivity, unlocking the critical data needed to achieve the IIoT promise of improved operations driven by big data analytics and enable new business models based on smart connected systems and machines.

“Testbeds are a major focus and activity of the IIC and its members. Our testbeds are where the innovation and opportunities of the industrial Internet—new technologies, new applications, new products, new services and new processes—can be initiated, thought through and rigorously tested to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market,” said Dr. Richard Soley, executive director of the IIC. 

The testbed will:

  • Combine different critical control traffic (such as OPC UA) and best-effort traffic flows on a single, resilient network based on IEEE 802.1 TSN standards
  • Demonstrate TSN’s real-time capability and vendor interoperability using standard, converged Ethernet
  • Assess the security value of TSN and provide feedback on the ability to secure initial TSN functions
  • Show ability for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to incorporate high-performance and latency-sensitive applications 
  • Deliver integration points for smart real-time edge cloud control systems into IIoT infrastructure and application.

Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)

www.iiconsortium.org 

– Edited by CFE Media. See more Control Engineering industrial networking stories.