Virtual Network Topologies for Real-time I4.0 Components based on Time-Sensitive Networking

Future production systems are expected to support dynamic plug-and-produce scenarios across different component manufacturers. Therefore, the concept of I4.0 components was developed. An I4.0 component describes an asset with an asset administration shell providing a standardized representation of its capabilities. Real-time I4.0 components additionally demand for a deterministic communication with bounded low latency, where the network topology is typically defined by physical links and infrastructure. In order to avoid rewiring and to support dynamic plug-and-produce scenarios with real-time I4.0 components, we present so-called virtual topologies decoupled from the physical network infrastructure. Thereby, we extend the concept of real-time I4.0 components to configure the required behavior and introduce an additional submodel for the administration shell. Moreover, a central SDN controller is enhanced to automatically configure the virtual topologies during runtime. These topologies are based on the new real-time communication technology IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). Finally, we evaluate the latency of the prototypical implementation within real-time I4.0 components depending on the frame size and network bandwidth.