Intel: TSN and 5G, empowering the Industrial Internet of Things

Today, multiple vertical markets such as automotive, consumer products, oil and gas, utilities, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages are evaluating and deploying smart industry and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies. In the digital transformation of industry, wireless connectivity has become a key factor. The performance of wireless connections determines whether machines, people, and objects can communicate efficiently anytime and anywhere. At the same time, the emergence of 5G has had a disruptive impact on many fields such as industry and manufacturing, especially private pre-installed 5G solutions and public 5G, which is also one of the most important opportunities for the deployment of the next generation of wireless communications in recent times.

Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is a set of standards developed by the Time-Sensitive Networking Task Group of the IEEE 802.1 Working Group. TSN serves in many ways as an important communication bridge between the Information Technology (IT) network that manages business processes and analytics and the Operational Technology (OT) network that manages actual factory equipment. The TSN series of standards is designed to provide accurate time synchronization and time-critical data timeliness for network connections, making it an ideal choice for control systems, computer vision applications, etc. that receive data from sensors.

5G can achieve low latency and ultra-reliable determinism for industrial control systems and data traffic, while wireless connectivity brings flexibility. Together, they bring system connectivity to industrial manufacturing. TSN and 5G fusion technology (TSN-over-5G) supports time-sensitive network services through 5G, allowing industrial equipment such as sensors and actuators to communicate wirelessly and deterministically with industrial controllers such as PLCs. This meets the requirements of smart industry and can also reduce costs, give rise to new business models, and simplify factory operations. The key technologies of TSN-over-5G are: TSN synchronization based on 5G systems, TSN Ethernet operation based on 5G systems, 5G ultra-reliable low latency (URLLC) transmission technology (especially for low-latency cyclic data flows), 5G point-to-point quality of service (QoS) management, and intelligent scheduler algorithms.

For Intel, ensuring the ecosystem’s successful transition to smart industry and integrating 5G technology in this process is part of our ultimate purpose. We are working with standards bodies such as 3GPP to develop 3GPP Release-16 standards to support TSN-over-5G technology, and working with ecosystems such as Bosch to establish early standards-based proof of concept (PoC) projects using next-generation wireless technologies such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6. With the 3GPP Release-16 standard about to be officially released in the summer, we have established an early TSN-over-5G proof of concept project with Bosch, a global IIoT leader, using Intel 5G prototype solutions. This proof of concept includes user equipment (UE), radio access network (RAN) and core, and demonstrates the four key technologies mentioned above. This project can be directly used with Bosch’s TSN-compatible programmable logic controller (PLC) terminals to verify the feasibility of the technology and demonstrate key IIoT use cases.

In this project, Intel and Bosch successfully demonstrated a typical use case of TSN IIoT, which is currently supported by the factory's wired infrastructure. The first and second PLCs use the open platform communication (OPC) unified architecture (UA) protocol open standard for 5G communication, mainly to achieve mobile angle control and high-speed rotating wheel speed synchronization. Specifically, the PoC project demonstrated TSN synchronization based on the 5G system, with a timing error far less than 1 microsecond, and a one-way delay of only 4 milliseconds for time-critical action control instructions. Intel's 3.7 GHz 5G prototype system can also simultaneously broadcast 4K ultra-high-definition video streams.

This project is one of the first to demonstrate 5G NR pre-Rel-16 TSN-over-5G capabilities, including 802.1AS-based synchronization and 802.1Qbv-based time-aware delivery of critical packets under 5G systems. Another result of this collaborative project is that the 5G advanced scheduler supporting URLLC and E2E QoS can meet the requirements of deterministic time-critical packet delivery. In addition, the project has achieved microsecond time synchronization, millisecond worst-case latency, and "five nines" reliability. The project provides full flexibility for reconfiguration, scalability, and mobility through 5G wireless connectivity.

Diagram of the PoC setup architecture, showing TSN-over-5G technology based on Intel’s 5G prototype system

The success of Intel and Bosch's proof-of-concept project shows that TSN-over-5G is not only an available technology, but it can also be a powerful solution for manufacturing companies that want to integrate next-generation wireless solutions to simplify operations, time-critical data transmission, more flexible factory actual operation configuration, and reduce capital expenditures. The project supports 5G NR Rel-16 functions, namely early practice of URLLC and TSN in a mixed data flow environment. This test platform can serve as the basis for future 5G and TSN performance and other smart industrial solution testing launched by leaders such as Bosch. For example, extended cases can be edge computing resources and dynamic workload allocation for more technical verification.

As 5G services continue to iterate, the manufacturing industry will enjoy more advanced solutions in the future, and the productivity of the entire industry will rise to a new level. In order to ensure the success of manufacturing companies, global ecosystem leaders such as Intel and Bosch will continue to work hard to develop more solutions to promote the future integration of IIoT and 5G.