Networking Test Bed Wrings Out Industrial IoT
While a global network of connected devices and sensors touted as the Internet of Things (IoT) remains mostly on the drawing board, the industrial sector is rolling up its sleeves to wring out key components of an industrial IoT that is closer to reality.
Among the technical issues raised by a connected factory floor are standards for reliable, high-throughput networks capable of securely handling latency-sensitive applications. To that end, industry standards bodies like the IEEE have released new networking standards designed to ensure interoperability and performance as the factory floor is connected.
Among the new specs is a new Ethernet 802 standard that addresses "time sensitive networking (TSN). The goal is an open networking infrastructure that supports interoperability for industrial IoT applications like real-time control and synchronization of automated manufacturing.
"TSN can at the same time support other common traffic found in manufacturing applications, driving convergence between IT and operational technologies," according to National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI). The automated test equipment and instrumentation software specialist based in Austin, Texas, announced a partnership this week with the Industrial Internet Consortium to put the TSN to the test.
Along with National Instrument, members of the new Time Sensitive Networking Testbed include the German engineering firm Bosch Rexroth (NSE: BOSCHLTD), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Schneider Electric (EPA: SU) and networking specialist TTTech. Among the goals is developing secure links between the factory floor and "smart edge devices," the partners said.
Besides manufacturing, other industrial applications include electrical grids and transportation networks.
The establishment of working test beds illustrates how an industrial IoT is likely to be the first real-world implementation of a much-hyped "Internet of Everything." The Industrial Internet Consortium notes that it is using test beds to wring out new technologies and applications " to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market."
The TSN test bed would be used to combine different control traffic such as machine-to-machine communications protocols and "best-effort traffic flows" on a TSN-based network. The group said it would demonstrate TSN's real-time capability and vendor interoperability using standard Ethernet.
The partners said they also would assess TSN security while demonstrating the ability of a projected industrial IoT to incorporate latency-sensitive applications. Those networking issues are becoming more acute as more data and applications move to the cloud.
Finally, the test bed partners said they would deliver "smart, real-time edge cloud control systems" that could be integrated into industrial IoT implementations and applications.
The network test bed is timely, industry watchers note, since the industrial sector is expected to lead the way for IoT deployment with a nearly 27 percent annual growth rate through 2025. That works out to about 34 billion devices, according to market forecaster IHS.
Industrial automation is expected to be the key driver as IoT technologies are applied to manufacturing. Among the challenges for the industrial IoT are figuring out how to wirelessly connect very expensive equipment in the "challenging" communications environment of the shop floor running multiple communications protocols, IHS noted last year.
