Hannover Messe, Launch TSN+OPC UA Testbed 
Launch of the TSN+OPC UA Testbed at Hannover Messe Huawei

Hannover Messe: Testbed for time-sensitive Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications

News from Apr. 24, 2018

Fraunhofer FOKUS unveiled the “Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) + OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA)” testbed together with Huawei and 18 other partners. It provides unified real-time Ethernet for manufacturing and control applications that require low latency and adherence to timely reliable communication sequences. 

At Huawei's booth in Hall 6, D18, the benefits of the TSN + OPC UA test environment will be illustrated with six scenarios, such as motor synchronization or motion control for plotters.

Time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a set of open communication protocol standards for deterministic, time-synchronized Ethernet. It enables reliable communication between machines and equipment, for example, for real-time manufacturing automation and control applications. OPC UA is a service-oriented platform that enables device-independent interoperability between machine-to-machine and machine-to-enterprise communication. As a combination of TSN and OPC UA, the test environment provides an unified and vendor-independent communication network for Industrial IoT applications, which is real-time capable and highly deterministic.

Regarding the development of the testbed, the Industrial IoT Center at Fraunhofer FOKUS was responsible for both the system architecture and the system integration. Through its in-depth TSN and OPC UA expertise and test tools from its TSN Interoperability Lab, the IIoT Center integrates and tests complex TSN and OPC UA-based IIoT systems for manufacturing processes.