Safety-related Applications over Wireless Time-Sensitive Networks

Abstract

Industrial communication systems provide deterministic and reliable communication between various industrial components. In the past several decades, different communication technologies (Fieldbus, Real-Time Ethernet (RTE)) were used to achieve such determinism. Recently, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is being utilized in industrial environments to support end-to-end low latency deterministic communication by providing mechanisms for accurate time synchronization, traffic scheduling/shaping, and reliability. With many use cases requiring portability and seamless mobility, such features are being developed for wireless networks as well, expanding the time-sensitive communication to the wireless domain. Wireless TSN's aim is to provide wired TSN-like features, achieving wiredwireless interoperability and flattening the automation system pyramid. In this paper, we present an integration between the wireless TSN and PROFINET. We show that the safety-related applications can be supported seamlessly, providing deterministic communication and reliability under best-effort traffic load in the wireless network. The solution is evaluated in terms of the achieved end-to-end latency and the probability of failure per hour of the fail-safe communication. It is shown that by using wireless time-sensitive networking with dedicated time slots per traffic flow a safety integrity level up to grade 4 can be achieved.

Predicting Wireless Channel Quality by means of Moving Averages and Regression Models

“…To comply to the new production paradigms and satisfy the previously listed goals, industrial networks are becoming increasingly heterogeneous [6], which implies that the requirements they are expected to meet in terms of reliability, determinism, and timeliness are becoming more and more strict. Research works aimed at improving the different wireless communication technologies to meet these constraints [7], [8], [9], [10], [11] represent concrete contributions toward their widespread adoption in the industry. In addition, research on (ultra-)low power solutions and energy-saving mechanisms are of utmost importance for those technologies employed in mobile and battery-powered devices [12].…”

Linear Combination of Exponential Moving Averages for Wireless Channel Prediction

“…In this respect, wireless communication technologies are one of the main enablers, by supporting mobility and automatic (re)configurability of industrial systems [4]. The ever increasing need for wire-free solutions in industries, homes, and cities, implies that specific research activities, aimed at making the related technologies capable to fulfill the very strict requirements, in terms of dependability and end-to-end latency, of industrial networks [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], are more and more demanded. Besides communication, services like localization [11], timesynchronization [12], and roaming [13] have to be also provided for enabling fully wireless industrial systems (required, e.g., when devices are characterized by mobility), by adapting the existing approaches to the specific wireless technology.…”