Hirschmann were among the first adopters of TSN to future-proof their products and customers’ systems. Thomas Rodenbusch-Mohr of Hirschmann Automation and Control considers the benefits of TSN and why their company is offering compatible products. “The key benefit of TSN is that it accelerates the creation of open, unified, and convergent architectures. It provides the opportunity to realise vast productivity improvements, making it important for end devices as well as infrastructures to support this technology.”
TSN technology
TSN technology supports open network architectures for deterministic communications within standard vendor-neutral Ethernet. It caters for the highest real-time communications demands of industrial automation applications.
Importantly, it also supports network convergence by allowing users to merge IT and OT traffic on the same wire. This allows a reduction in network complexity and capital expenditure (capex) investment for users. This releases valuable information that data scientists can use to support Industry 4.0 and smart applications. By making this information seamlessly accessible directly from the source, there is no need for gateways in between.
Other features of TSN that are valuable to users, automation and machine vendors include backward and forward compatibility. These make it possible to integrate existing and future Ethernet devices in TSN-capable networks with suitable, comprehensive migration paths. Furthermore, the newly introduced TSN mechanisms are additions to the Ethernet toolbox. As additions to Ethernet, they offer the same network architecture flexibility and bandwidth scaling of traditional Ethernet.
Organisations can also advance key applications, such as predictive maintenance, which require the analysis of substantial volumes of sensor data. An open and converged network from the Cloud to shop floor sensors also supplies secure access to perform maintenance and other tasks remotely.”
Exact time synchronisation
Besides, TSN offers exact time synchronization (IEEE 802.1AS) and mechanisms to control bandwidth utilisation. This is relevant in discrete applications as well as within process automation networks to supply precise times for applications based on sequences of events.
In summary, TSN technology is a crucial part of future-oriented smart applications in various sectors. It enables convergence, distributed real-time control, and exact time synchronisation, making it possible for complex machinery and robots to interact with each other with higher precision and flexibility than previously possible.
Being part of an association like CLPA provides companies like Hirschmann with the opportunity to leverage a strong, established ecosystem of interoperable solutions, engage in key discussions with other industry players, and understand the most relevant technology requirements.
