The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) recently announced that the Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) Testbed received top ranking in the Testbed Showcase, an opportunity for IIC testbed leaders to present and be judged by their peers on the strategic value of their testbeds. Additionally, the ICC Testbed will be extended to a second site in Erbach, Germany. TTTech is alongside other companies part of the IIC TSN Testbed.
The TSN Testbed is enabling the early phase usage of enhancements to Ethernet standards IEEE 802.1 and IEEE 802.3. The TSN Testbed applies TSN technology to a range of manufacturing automation and control vendors to display the new capabilities and value. Three key capabilities form its core: Time Synchronization, Sending Scheduled Traffic Flows, and Central, Automated System Configuration.
All TSN Testbed work is communicated to IEEE and Avnu, a standards organization developing the interoperability and certification based on the IEEE’s TSN. It is used to display OPC UA enabled vendor independent interoperability of real-time data and other industrial automation protocols (e.g. ODVA’s EtherNet/IP) on the same network with typical IT voice/video data.
Plugfests are face-to-face events where participants gather to test the interoperability of their enhanced products and technology. The testbed in Europe, established at Bosch Rexroth development site for IoT related control and communication solutions in Erbach, Germany, shall enable more companies to participate in the plugfests and join the testbed. Results from this latest plugfest will be demonstrated at both the IIC booth and the OPC UA booth at Hannover Messe (HMI) 2017. Some testbed participants will also have TSN displays in their respective booths at HMI.
TSN Testbed participants include IIC members Analog Devices, Belden/Hirschmann, Bosch Rexroth, B&R Industrial Automation, Cisco, Hilscher, KUKA, National Instruments, Renesas Electronics, Schneider Electric, SICK AG, TTTech and Xilinx. Other participants include Calnex, Ixia, ISW – Stuttgart University and Phoenix Contact.
Read more about this topic in a press release from IIC.
The IIC is co-hosting the Deterministic Ethernet Forum that is taking place next week. One of the panels is dedicated to the TSN Testbed.
