5G-TSN Integrated Prototype for Reliable Industrial Communication Using Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability

Electronics, vol. 14, pp. 758

Abstract

The stringent requirements of industrial communication, especially high reliability and real-time response, are regarded as the main bottlenecks for the widespread adoption of wireless technologies in industrial applications. The integration of 5G and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) protocols offers convergence of both wireless and various wired communication technologies for industrial applications. In this article, we describe our 5G and TSN integrated prototype, which achieves high reliability based on the IEEE 802.1CB Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability (FRER) scheme. Different 5G systems have been used in various combinations to empirically study the benefits of FRER for 5G communication in real industrial environments. We evaluate the performance of our prototype and validate it for an industrial use case on Smart Sensors for Milling Processes, requiring a latency below 10 ms for 99.99% of the packets sent, which has been achieved in the measurements using FRER. This use case and the high requirements towards latency and reliability demonstrate the benefits of 5G integration with FRER for industrial production.

Authors 6

1. Pierre Kehl corresponding Aachen Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, 52074 Aachen, Germany

2. Junaid Ansari

   Ericsson (Germany)

   Affiliation as printed

   Ericsson GmbH, Ericsson Allee 1, 52134 Herzogenrath, Germany

3. Mikael Lovrin Aachen Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, 52074 Aachen, Germany

4. Praveen Mohanram Aachen Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, 52074 Aachen, Germany

5. Chi‐Chuan Liu
   Affiliation as printed

   Moxa Inc., 13F., No. 3, Sec. 4, New Taipei Blvd., Xinzhuang Dist., New Taipei City 242, Taiwan

6. Robert Heinrich Schmitt Aachen Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, 52074 Aachen, Germany

   WZL|RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany