Dr Richard Soley, executive director of the IIC, said: “Our testbeds are where the innovation and opportunities of the industrial Internet can be initiated, thought through and rigorously tested to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market.”
The goal of this testbed is to display the value of the latest Ethernet IEEE 802 standards, referred to as TSN, in an ecosystem of manufacturing applications. TSN powers a standard, open network infrastructure supporting multivendor interoperability and integration. The technology can support real-time control and synchronisation, for example between motion applications and robots, over a single Ethernet network. TSN can at the same time support other common traffic found in manufacturing applications, driving convergence between IT and operational technologies.
Previously, many real-time control applications were deployed using nonstandard network infrastructure or unconnected networks that leave the devices and data much harder to access, if at all. TSN’s value is derived from driving convergence and increased connectivity, unlocking the critical data needed to achieve the IIoT promise of improved operations driven by big data analytics and enabling new business models based on smart connected systems and machines.
Eric Starkloff, executive vice president of Global Sales and Marketing at NI, said: “This technology is necessary for the future of the IIoT and the IIC is providing a community, as well as enabling real-world testbeds, where industry leaders can collaborate to make this a reality.”
